


Snowflakes On Steel

by slicksilver (skulltoki)



Category: K-pop, Super Junior
Genre: 50k words, Action, Dystopia, EunHae, M/M, Romance, equal!eunhae, inspired by the movie metropolis (2001), metropolis!au, this legit has one small smut scene since i didn't feel like it fit the atmosphere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 14:33:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 52,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13789743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulltoki/pseuds/slicksilver
Summary: Donghae and Hyukjae are very different from one another. At the very far ends of their big metropolis - on the levels of high and low - they thought they were destined to be stuck and living the lives they were born into. When they meet, sparks fly and curses are thrown. Neither one of them had no idea that they would soon be pulled to survive one hell of an adventure.Together.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Snowflakes on Steel by slicksilver  
> Length: Multichaptered, 50k+ words  
> Genre: Romance, drama, kind of “sci-fi”, futuristic  
> Pairing: Donghae & Eunhyuk  
> A/N: A fanfic written specifically for the EunHae Holidays 2015. This story has been inspired by the animated movie Metropolis (2001), which has a futuristic city setting to it; overpopulation of the Earth, humans squeezed in big cities that have level-like structure to them, and a leader who is not kind to his people. As requested, I've tried to include things and themes that my giftee jnnrz (AFF) asked for; romance, drama, action as well, and a bit of smut.
> 
> Special thanks will go to my friends silversymphony and bitterkitty who supported me as I was writing this.
> 
> Originally published on AFF with a poster and chapter photos > https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1071848/

 

 

 

 

  
   Arriving to the sub floor beneath level 1, to area 26 and the very borders of sectors B and C, a man was greeted by the familiar rusty stench of metal scrap and parts of machinery that was once worth  millions. As the worn out gates of the old elevator behind him closed and the awful creaking sound reached the final feathery hairs on his neck, he felt the strongest shivers and cursed quietly. This was one of the few elevators that worked around here anymore, but the man knew he had to keep using it if he wanted to get to his newfound cave of treasures. Area 24 and 25 had already been nothing but disappointments, but luckily 26 had seemed promising enough. Covering his shoulders and back, the man had a sand brown cape which had its hood pulled over his head to hide his face. Huffing while climbing up the mountain of worn out steel under him, sharp edges making tears at his old boots and bolts dropping down when they were stepped on, he murmured a few more curses.

  
   The man had a small companion with him. Almost fully built by himself - a four legged robot jumping around, tiny metal paws clashing and colliding with the pieces it stepped on. Cheery beeping sounds echoed as the robot searched around for anything out of the ordinary, not fully charged and yet unusually energetic today. The two of them were walking on the pile of heap within a five meter radius of each other, and the robot was taking all kinds of little detours while sniffing around like a real dog.

  
   Except it wasn’t using its nose - but its sensors.

  
   “Aren’t you a cheery one today”, the man mumbled, sounding bored as he stole a glance at the dog. Donghae, the brunet, had thought it was the field of electricity surrounding the tunnels they had come through which usually caused robots to be more hyperactive, but he was proved otherwise when they were already past it. The beeping became livelier when they had gotten to the end of the tunnel, and Donghae thought maybe Bada needed rebooting at some point.

  
   As they reached the ten square meter area they had started going through some days ago, Donghae took out his small flashlight that had its handle fixed with duct tape and only a few loose screws holding it together, and scanned the view in front of him. The beam of light was weak and yellow, but enough for the man to seek out anything he might’ve found interesting. It was his eyes that hunted for the still usable, literal crap from the trash, and it was his dog’s sensors that usually kept an eye that they were alone. Its job was to basically warn Donghae about intruders and guards, but lately the man had noticed differences in the way he talked to the little fellow. It was almost like he just longed for some company, and a being he could just talk his thoughts out loud to.

  
   Donghae had always dreamt of owning a pet or an android just for the sake of it, but he didn’t actually have enough money to buy anything even close to that, not to even mention an android spare part he could use in a cheaper robot. He was a lonely man who couldn’t afford to feed a real pet either, so Bada was just the perfect solution for that.

  
   There were many kinds of robots available in today’s world. They had androids for the richest, basic service robots for the level 3 citizens, and many different automatic devices for the subway stations, trains, shops and restaurants. Factory robots were a must, and the mass production of them had swept almost 80% worth of jobs away from the assembly line job market. Many had lost their jobs over that and were now trying to think of a way to survive after being thrown into the lowest levels.

  
   There was also a big amount of robots in the police force who kept an eye out in the city. They were supposed to be on the side of the citizens, but when a new lord named Lee Gijae had acquired the control of the metropolis some years ago, they had become Santa’s little helpers - also known as the watching eyes of the great Gijae. Some trash robots designed for squeezing the wasteland junk into cubes were harmless, just like the maintenance ones who kept the city’s boiler rooms working, but the guards were mean. They had guns with them, and they were programmed to obey strict orders no matter the situation. They had caught Donghae enough times for him to learn his lesson to not start messing with them. You couldn’t break or shoot them since they always had a way of knowing who did it, and no one was stupid enough to destroy public property. Their lord Gijae had a soft spot for punishments too, so that was usually the very last reason to not do it. The guards were also androids to some extent - robots built to resemble humans and hide in the crowd. They were strong, didn’t have stamina like Donghae, and they definitely had more bullets with them than an average man could carry without looking like a soldier going to a war by himself. So you just had to run and not come back until a week had passed if you were caught.

  
   Donghae shivered as the last memory of almost getting caught by one came back. Before he could continue, he had to look at the clock twice just to make sure he still had the same hour left that he had just moments ago.

  
   With the first glance of the mess surrounding him, Donghae noticed that something had changed. He knew someone had been roaming around their chosen area. Things looked different: the broken TV screen that was still standing up yesterday had fallen down and the box filled with all kinds of small steel junk had been flipped over. The whole structure was weirdly messed up too, the almost angular top of the waste pyramid gone and the vent on top of that was left open. Donghae directed the light on the edges of the hatch - old locks that seemed to have been broken with force and the steel bar door hanging open. Had someone or something fallen through?

  
   The man tried to look further up the vent, but was abruptly stopped when his robot companion left out a bark about twenty metres away. It was a real dog bark that had been recorded into the voice bank and programmed to be used only in urgent situations, or in other words, when Bada had something to show to his owner and felt the need to be extremely vocal about it.

  
   “Be quiet!” Donghae hissed as he threw a murderous glare at the dog, which was in turn trying to point Donghae to look at a certain direction behind a pile of robot legs. That didn't interest Donghae one bit, not after all the useless stuff Bada had started showing him in the last months. He was a bit afraid his pet would be ruined by a virus or something, but he didn't have the heart to actually format its motherboard.

  
   “Shut up”, Donghae said one last time before diverting his gaze back to the vent. He knew Bada’s tendency to get too excited about some things, causing it to rate them as urgent almost always at the wrong time. “I should’ve never programmed you to do any unnecessary sounds..” he mumbled to himself as he gave up with the hatch and looked around with his light, not seeing anything interesting in the radius of thirty meters. Only dust floating around in the beam of light and a boring pile of broken pipes next to a creepy robot head, which was staring right back at him with its dark eyes. Older model, a waiter robot probably, which had a few gunholes on the cheek, Donghae deduced. It was one of the many PS-Rs - personal service robots - left which the government wanted to get rid of due to their easy risk of being hacked and used against humans. The sister model was called a PC-R, a personal company robot, which was originally designed to be a cheap model for the not so rich who just wanted some company. Gijae had changed that and started a big campaign against them. Every single one, every PS-R and PC-R were to be destroyed.

  
   “Tch!”

  
   With that the brunet soon gave up and decided to go back to work. As he was fiddling with the flashlight and tried to ignore his companion’s wild running and eager beeping, his foot went through a cardboard box, causing him to almost trip. When Bada decided it was enough after being turned down twice, the tiny robot started jumping around and ran to his owner. The dog started pulling Donghae from the hem of his jeans with its mechanical jaws, and soon the brunet knew he had to give in.

  
   “Okay! I get it!" He half shouted half whispered and tried to kick Bada away, "Just stop ruining my clothes!" When the robot finally stopped, Donghae remembered to lower his speech back to the normal one. "Thank you. Now what is it?” He tried talking as he wiped sweat from his forehead and directed the beam right at the dog, in the hope of annoying it back even if it was just a robot. The dark visor working as the dog’s eyes lit up with green led dots, forming the word ‘ORGANIC’ before beeping again. Donghae raised his brow at first, but that expression turned into a horrified one when he remembered.

   “No.” Just a few seconds ago the man could’ve been convinced of going, but after seeing that word he recalled their last time when Bada had found something organic. It had been a toilet flush system from a small personal aircraft, designed and built like old school boat lavatories, but the worst surprise was that its pipes were still coated in shit.

“No, no, no! Ditch that", he shook his head as he spoke, "We’re not looking for poop, are we?” Donghae had programmed Bada with a part they called 'the brain’, reused from another pet robot, but never had he thought it would be so useless and make his pet even more… brainless. He had had some pets before, all man made, but this one was a bit more stubborn than usual and it really seemed like it had an actual personality that appeared over time. Of course Bada was also his only companion at the time, so Donghae knew he might’ve just been imagining things too.

  
   Bee-eep!

  
   This time the beep sound was longer, like a child saying 'pleeease!'.

   “Bada, I mean it”, the brunet said back, now becoming very frustrated. He didn’t want to experience the horrific smell ever again. Donghae thought Bada probably got the message now, but it didn't take long until he started hearing a louder noise.

  
   Bee-eep! Bee-eep! Bee-eep!

  
   “Jesus, okay, okay! Just shut up, someone’s gonna hear us if you keep that up.”

  
   The next thing he knew he was following the dog, swearing to himself that he’d build a new one if this ended up being something as disgusting as before. When they reached the spot, the robot stopped on its tracks while forming an arrow on the LED screen, pointing towards the direction Donghae next looked at. What he saw was, at first, just dirty fabric covering something, but when Donghae took a few steps forward he noticed it was actually a body lying down on its stomach, a formal grey cape stained in blood covering it. He recognized the colour and design of the clothing right away. Only the people living at sky reach were allowed to wear it, so this person probably was either working straight for the government or had something to do with the head family. Maybe a servant or even an android, but what the heck had even brought him here? The cape had been ripped at the edge and the hood was slightly off, showing a glimpse of the person’s messy, blond hair. It was only then when Donghae realized it was most likely a human, and apparently still alive according to Bada’s heat sensors even after looking so beaten up. Donghae gulped and took a deep breath before he walked up to the person and tried waking him up, seeming a bit hesitant and unsure. What if it was a trap? It wasn’t the first time when he had been accused of murder of a body he had found at the waste levels. This one had probably fallen down the hatch he was looking at earlier, but had managed to still walk some metres until they had fallen down.

  
   “Hey.. Can you hear me?” The brunet didn’t really know what to do in a situation like this, nor did he want to attract too much attention, but he knew he had to help him. Before saying anything else he took liberty on touching the body, feeling the warm skin at the neck where he tried to look for any plugins, just to check. No holes, no screws, no patches. He even found the real vein that pulsed weakly. Now he was certain it was a real person and not a robot or an android. The newest models were almost too realistic they could be mistaken as humans any time, at least by him, but this was a good start, if you could call it that.

  
   “Are you alright?” Worried, he tried again, “please wake up. I don’t want to shout here.” As Donghae was kneeling down next to the person, Bada sat beside him quietly. 'ALIVE’ said the LED screen now. Donghae looked at Bada and cocked a brow.

  
   “I figured he’s alive so thanks for nothing, but the next question is what the hell do I do now?”

  
   No answer. The question was far too complicated for a robot of course. Donghae sighed and looked at the sight in front of him, then deciding to put away his flashlight to a worn out gun holster made out of leather. He had forgotten to take the actual gun with him, once again.

  
   “Okay then,” he started warming himself up before reaching out both of his arms and rolling the body on its back. The blond person let out a small grunt now, which Donghae took as a good sign. He was just about to help the body sit up before he realized a sharp piece of metal pointing up from his stomach, surrounded by blood. “Oh.”

  
   Now he realized he had probably already hurt the person by turning him over. But he had to get this person to safety, right? This place wasn’t safe, and the wound looked really bad. The guards would do a security round at exactly five minutes past 3PM, and they would probably consider this person a homeless drunkard, leaving him here to die on his infectious wounds. Donghae, as the gentle guy he was, didn’t like the idea one bit. He decided to remove the rusty object and take this person home until he would be healed enough. Grabbing the metal with shaky, bare hands he furrowed his brows and whispered his apology. “I’m sorry, but you’re probably going to die if I don’t do this.”

  
   The brunet quickly pulled it out, causing the poor person to wince in pain, his mind still fortunately out of this world. Donghae mumbled another 'I’m sorry’ as he used the sharp edge of the metal to make a slight cut on the blond’s cape, then tearing a piece of it off and tying that around the man’s waist to help control the bleeding. Then he proceeded to help him sit up before lifting him up and carrying him. It was tough work, but Donghae reassured himself with the thought that he was probably heavier than this guy, and that he was lucky to not run into an actual homeless drunkard this time. Walking on the uneven surface he almost tripped on more than three occasions, but eventually he made it to the elevator he so much despised. Bada walked beside him quietly.

 

 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

 

   The curly blond woke up to the smell of a stuffy house and the sound of muffled jazz through an old radio located somewhere behind the door, in another room. When he tried opening his eyes, he was greeted by the faint artificial light that flooded in between the blinders of a small window, showing as rays of light in the dust floating inside the room. The rays landed on his face as a set of stripes, and when the man tried to close his eyes from it he felt his cheek hurt. He felt bad, tired, and his body hurt everywhere. When he tried to sit up on his elbows he felt the pain equal to stabbing in his stomach, and being too weak to tolerate that, he gave up and fell back down. It hurt like hell, but he bit his lip so he wouldn't let out any sounds. He understood he was in someone else’s house, but the man had no idea where that house was, what the time was, and why did he end up in a room that looked more like a shed. Seeing all sorts of computer parts and robot hardware stacked on shelves and the corners, he felt slightly claustrophobic.

   His grey cape was thrown to the chair on the other side of the room and he saw blood on it. Realizing that, he scrunched up his nose. The wallpapers of the room were in a shabby condition too, and the sheets he was lying on smelled like someone else. A man. What kind of a person lived in a house like this, he wondered? And why did he feel such a sharp ache around his stomach? When he looked down to see where all the pain was coming from, he noticed a white bandage around his waist and a strong red stain on it. So, he had gotten himself injured?

  
   "Oh.." the man mumbled to himself as he realized how bad the wound actually was underneath the bandage. Feeling very weak, he didn't remember clearly what had happened, but when he closed his eyes he saw the faint flashbacks of a gang cornering him and the nasty punches and words that had been thrown at him. Confused and anxious, the man opened his eyes and turned his head to the table next to him and studied the junk on it. Trash pushed aside to make room for an alarm clock and a dirty mug. The back of the clock was facing him, so he tried to reach out his arm to grab it. What he didn't realize, was that his fingers were way too weak for an action like that, and that caused the object to slip off from his grip and fall to the floor with a loud clank.

  
   _Shit._

  
   The next thing he heard was the distant sound of footsteps, and soon a knock at the door before it creaked open. The man on the bed tried sitting up again, but faced the same difficulties as before with the piercing pain.

  
   “Oh! You are awake?” Said the soothing voice at the door.

  
   The blond looked at the other man who had messy, brown hair covering his forehead, and curious, double lidded eyes locked on him, and deduced that this was the owner of the apartment, as well as the one who had brought him here. Their gazes met, and for a second the blond felt like running away.

  
   “I cleaned your wounds while you were asleep, but it still hurts, right?” Donghae was smiling because he, in his opinion, had successfully saved a life, and it was natural for him to be kind to everyone to leave a good impression.

  
   The blonde instead had been afraid this person was here to beat him up, but apparently that wasn't the case? He took a long time staring at the figure at the door until his eyes traveled to the clock he had dropped. Donghae followed his gaze and looked down too, noticing the broken thing. Oh well, he thought, at least now he had a reason to build a new one.

  
   "It's alright. It wasn’t even showing the right time”, said the brunet with a reassuring tone before changing the subject, “So, how are you feeling? Do you want me to bring you some painkillers?” Donghae knowingly stayed by the door so he wouldn’t startle the other. When he had no response, he continued his monologue.

   “Okay.. You don’t speak much, do you? I'm going to get you some medicine, so just rest." As Donghae finished his sentence, he turned around and tiptoed out of the door, then walking to the tiny kitchen corner of his small apartment. When he came back with a mug and a pill, he put them on the table next to the bed and found himself a chair to drag on the wooden floor, creating a nasty screech before sitting on it and throwing the grey cape away from the backrest which he then placed front of him.

  
   "Take it. It'll ease the pain", Donghae said and nodded at the direction of the medicine. He thought he had been calm enough to not make this man freak out, but instead of a nice nod he suddenly got an aggressive response from the blond, rejecting his kind offer.

  
   "Who the hell are you?"

  
   Right. He probably should've waited a bit longer with the medicine. And he shouldn't have come so close just yet. The person was probably scared and thought him as a creepy murderer now who wanted to drug him. God knows what had happened to him before he had ended up at the dump.

  
   When Donghae had first seen him, he couldn't deny himself of thinking that the blond was very gorgeous. He had recognized the grey cape, which immediately told him that this person belonged to the higher levels and had probably no reason to be here. Elite, the lower class people called them, those who ruled this city from the high rise buildings on top of the third level, at sky reach. Donghae doubted if this was a good idea after all, but he could at least introduce himself now since the other asked, right?

  
   "Uhh.. Well, I am Donghae, and-", he was cut off immediately.

   "Where am I? Did you bring me here? What happened?" The blond asked all the questions at once, clearly panicking.

  
   He reminded Donghae of a cat. He looked mysteriously captivating, even beautiful although he had some scratches on his face, and you would think he’d be friendly or at least reserved, but his nature was the total opposite. Sharp nails hidden in soft, white fur. Though, Donghae understood it because he too would’ve been scared if he got into a situation like this. He mentally counted to five so he wouldn’t talk too quickly.

  
   "You are still in Sakgan”, he started before his visitor would bombard him with any more questions, “I brought you here after finding you at the waste areas. Now you're in my house. We're on the first level”, the man explained as gently and reassuringly as he could. He didn't want to upset this stranger more, but he knew the other probably wanted to know everything right away. He seemed somehow.. demanding. A person who was used to getting what he always asked for.

  
   "What..? H-how?”

  
   “I carried you.”

  
   “To your.. house?” The blond sounded like he couldn’t believe it. “You're saying.. this is your house?" He then looked around, eyeing all the robot and computer related junk in the room. He didn't understand how someone could live in such conditions. He came from a wealthy family, broken but still filthy rich, and he was used to large, tidy rooms and basically a floor only to himself. He didn’t know if he was more shocked about the reality of living a life like that or the fact that he was not at where he was supposed to be and his uncle would most likely be very angry, but he was either way displeased. He already felt the rage of his uncle bestowed upon him. The troops would probably be searching for him soon.

  
   "Well, yes.. What else? Where else would I live?" Donghae was slightly hurt by that comment and he had no idea what the condition of his home even had to do with anything, but he tried not to care about it. He had thought, by those looks, that this person would be as soft and angelic as his gorgeous features let him understand, but turned out he was actually the basic example of a snob. He didn’t care about the injuries or even thanking Donghae for saving him, and instead got provoked by the room he was in. Donghae couldn’t believe it.

  
   "Do you know who I am?" Asked the blond now, that sentence alone telling Donghae that he was probably dealing with a young adult that had problems a bit different to his. He gave up with trying to get his thank yous, but he still kept answering. "No, I don’t."

  
   Donghae kind of hoped to smack him back with that statement. The blond looked like a living piece of perfection; seeming flawless on the outside with his soft, prince like curls and plump lips, but the second he opened that puffy mouth of his, appeared the arrogant and bitchy nature from the inside. He was the kind who had grown up in the houses between clouds of cotton and had no understanding of the poor. Of people like Donghae. His judging eyes were already telling enough how much he despised just being there.

  
   “I did recognize your cape though.”

  
   The man took a long while staring at Donghae before deciding to leave.

   "Well, in that case I need to go. There is no reason for me to be here. You don’t know me, I don’t know you, and I sure hope you didn’t plan on keeping me as a hostage just because of that cape, did you?" The blond threw away the blanket and forced himself to sit on the bed's edge looking like he could handle the pain, but his face proved otherwise. Donghae tried not to care for the wound or the blond’s well being anymore, and luckily it wasn’t difficult since he was too appalled by the fact that the blond wouldn't even introduce himself, not to even mention the thanking.

  
   "Why? Are you in a hurry?" Donghae didn't do anything to stop him, but he wished he could talk to him so he would stay and learn to say those two words, at least. He thought things could get interesting if that happened. It was almost like dealing with a school boy who needed a few lessons on manners, but then again, if this person had indeed been born with a silver spoon up in his ass, he had most likely spent a year or two of his childhood learning manners and manners only, causing him to rebel every time he wasn’t under surveillance. In turn, Donghae’s life in general was boring; just visiting the dirty dumps over and over again, trying to find some new parts to build robots from, rebooting and programming older robots as a side business and very rarely coming across old androids to mess with.. but this! Meeting a cocky kid who deserved to have some sense knocked into his head? That was an interesting challenge for sure. He could still try and make the person stay, although he felt like he’d flip out at some point.

  
   "I don't belong to level 1."

  
   Or, he could deal with him, but only if Donghae wouldn't lose his mind over those kinds of comments and end up throwing this guy out personally.

  
   "Excuse me! I'm sorry I saved your ass, sir! I could take you back there if that’s what you want!" He didn’t know whether to keep his temper or lose it. This was a rare situation. Donghae wanted to know more about this person, but at the same time he wanted to annoy the heck out of him for getting back at him. For his whole life he had been despised for what he was - a poor lowlife living at level 1 - and if he could change even one person's opinion on that, he'd be delighted.

  
   They both fell silent after that and shared a long eye contact. It was almost like a staring contest before Donghae decided to put an end to it.

   "To be honest, I don't think you'll be able to walk or even find your way out of here..” he told him as he crossed a leg on top of another, “but go ahead then. With that attitude it's no wonder you were beaten up. I'll probably find you passed out again."

  
   He had tried to act nice, but that was short lived. The words took a while to process in the blond’s mind, but when he didn’t say anything back, Donghae noticed he was winning. He faked a smile and mentally counted to ten. He needed the mysterious power of sarcasm to keep going.

  
   "Just take the medicine and rest. We'll talk again when you have calmed down and you'll be able to tell me your actual name.” He stood up from the chair and stopped at the door frame, “I'll make dinner at some point." Donghae tried his best to think of ways and sentences that would make the other realize how idiotic he acted by keeping his temper and appearing friendly, meanwhile the injured man was still looking very annoyed, probably because Donghae was right. He really was wounded and he didn’t know his way out of there. He had lived between four walls almost his whole life and never actually seen the first level. He didn’t know how to get out of there, especially when he still felt weak and wobbly, desperate gang members on his tail.

  
   Just as Donghae was about to leave and close the door, the blond finally spoke up.

  
   "Eunhyuk”, he said.

  
   "What?" Donghae didn't hear the word clearly, and the atmosphere became a bit awkward as he looked over his shoulder.

  
   "My name. Use it."

  
   The brunet looked at him with skeptical eyes.

  
   "Riiight.. Eunhyuk.” He nodded slowly, trying the name once before turning away and leaving the door slightly ajar as he left. The name was distantly ringing a bell in his subconsciousness, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it before. When the brunet reached the living room, he decided to think about it later. He wanted to pat himself on the back, because yes! At least now he had gotten the blond’s name. If there was something useful he could do in this world next, it was to make this person understand what people like Donghae really had to go through every day.

  
   In some reality he thought he could even make a friend, but maybe that was too big of a goal as of now.

  
\--

  
   Hours passed. 4PM turned into 10PM, and the first drunk fights could be heard right at the nearest back valley. In the living room that was almost as small as the bedroom, Donghae sat by his working table with a pair of specs on his face, concentrating deeply on attaching some wires together that he didn't notice the time flowing or the moment when Eunhyuk, the curly blond silently stepped into the room.

  
   "I'm hungry”, the visitor simply said, making Donghae aware of his presence. “Didn't you say you were gonna cook?", the blond asked with a rude tone while eyeing the window behind the half closed shutters.

  
   "..Did I?" asked the brunet out loud, more directed at himself as he looked up and checked the time of his small binary clock in front of him. "Oh.”

  
   The lightning outside was almost the same as before. Night and day weren’t very distinctive in this part of level 1 because they were located almost fully underground, and that fact alone made Eunhyuk even more confused. How could people live without sunlight? Inside the only thing they shared was the faint desk lamp next to Donghae himself. It was making him anxious, like every other unusual thing.

  
   “I didn't notice it was getting so late."

  
   Eunhyuk didn't know what to answer, so he waited and stood by the bedroom door. The living room was as messy as the bedroom, and he was afraid he would hurt his legs if he were to take even one step to the wrong direction. Eunhyuk's stomach made a slight growling sound, and he became even more uncomfortable when he knew Donghae had heard that.

  
   "Yeah. Okay." The brunet awkwardly stopped his work for the day and stood up, gesturing his visitor to sit down on the couch while avoiding eye contact. When the blond man did so, he suddenly let out a gasp when he felt something hard between the couch and his butt. He was fast to get back up without doing any damage, but when he looked at the object he noticed it was already beeping rapidly and jumping on the floor, then running towards Donghae.

  
   "What the hell is that?” Eunhyuk questioned, not knowing what the moving object was. Donghae noticed the commotion while he was checking the fridge. He looked over his shoulder to see what was going on.

  
   "Oh, you found Bada! He's my pet designed to keep an eye out in case of intruders", he said and crouched down to pick up the robot after closing the fridge door. It had been empty, so now Donghae had to figure out where to get food for tonight. He didn’t feel like going to the market to seek out ingredients since this Eunhyuk would probably never touch his cookings, but he also knew very well that restaurants were too expensive for his wallet. As he was thinking of a third option, his thoughts were interrupted.

  
   "Is that.. a PC-R?" Came the blond's question.

  
   Donghae didn't know what Eunhyuk thought about PC-Rs, so he contemplated his answer for a while. He knew he couldn't hide the obvious.

  
   "Yeah, it is."

  
   PS-Rs and PC-Rs were both robot types that any public officer would shoot at the very second when seeing them. Donghae had done just the thing he wasn't supposed to, and had fixed one of them to his own liking. No matter the reason, no one was allowed to re-use old models anymore. It was illegal. But Eunhyuk had no guns with him, at least not any that Donghae would've noticed, so he could tell him the truth, right?

  
   "Bada's kind of a.. modified version. I found the body from the sub levels, all circuits broken from a huge electric shock. I fixed it, gave it a new motherboard and added some features.” He studied Eunhyuk's reaction and saw a puzzled look. Donghae scratched his neck. At the same time he tried to solve the food problem. He could go out and just buy it from the streets.. like hot dogs stands or hamburger stands.

  
   "So.. you're kind of a technician?" Eunhyuk asked, trying to sound nicer than before and now laid on the sofa when he was sure there was nothing but cushions under him. Donghae wondered if he had taken the medicine, or had he really calmed down already?

  
   "I.. guess?" The brown haired carefully answered before asking, "Is that a bad thing? I mean, what I do is not really a model example." He was standing very stupidly in the middle of the room, but he had a conversation going on! He couldn't leave just yet, not when his visitor wasn't insulting him anymore. Eunhyuk looked around the room, still judging the interior but this time considering twice whether he should talk his thoughts out loud or not. Maybe being a technician wasn't that bad, but the home was still in a horrific condition. He would've lifted up his feet from the floor so he could hug his knees, but his wound didn't let him move around a lot although he had taken the medicine. "What else do you do then?" He tried to sound casual and interested and keep out the rude comments, but failed in the toning when it wasn’t natural for him.

  
   "I do trips to the dump sites whenever I can to find some spare parts. Most people don't really like swimming in the trash so they buy good parts from me, and what's left I just use to build something as a hobby. I don't really have a storage room so.." he shrugged his shoulders, "that's why it looks like this." He almost wanted to apologize for the mess, clearly when Eunhyuk wasn't liking it one bit, but at the same time he knew he didn't have anything to be sorry about. It was his life, his apartment, and Eunhyuk just had to tolerate it for now. "And sometimes I also provide these rebooting and fixing services to others."

  
   "I see.." the blond haired answered.

  
   It was a miracle how many awkward silences they had already experienced in the few hours they had known each other.

  
   "Anyway, feel free to look around if it's not too dirty for your liking. I'll go get the food now."

  
   "Was your fridge empty?" Eunhyuk sounded like he had never had that problem in his life. Donghae thought he was probably enjoying breakfasts, brunches, lunch times and dinners at home, all ready and served and with a butler included. As Donghae was putting on his thicker coat, he chuckled, "Yes, it's kind of compensating for the mess outside of it. Creates a harmony, you know." The brunet had already grown a liking to the sarcastic way of talking, but Eunhyuk wasn’t as amused.

  
   When Donghae had survived putting on shoes and had gotten himself out of the door, he sighed heavily.

  
   Okay, he had a stranger in his house and they both needed food. They would probably stay awake for quite a long time too, so he had to make it double. The brown haired man took out his thin pouch of coins and opened it, counting the money he had. He bit his lip as he realized he'd be spending double the amount. "Shit."

 

 

* * *

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

   As they shared the bag of hot dogs that Donghae had bought from a hot dog stand, Eunhyuk thought that Donghae was a weird person. Messy, surrounded by trash, accompanied by a robot pet and living in a shed, easily offended and still full of positive energy to go on with life. It was a situation Eunhyuk had never experienced before and he didn't know how to act natural in it. Donghae in turn seemed very content, listening to his jazzy tunes while working on a piece of circuitry and sometimes smoking a cigarette every now and then. The food Eunhyuk tasted was weird compared to the one he got at home, but somewhere in his mind he liked the simple taste and the cozy feeling.

  
   After their late dinner the two of them ended up sharing a smoke or two, Eunhyuk lying down on the sofa while Donghae got back to his work. They didn't talk much, but Bada was extremely interested in Eunhyuk, considering the fact that Bada was a robot and not a real dog. Eunhyuk tried to ignore the little fellow because he never had any pets of his own, and he felt stupid if he tried to treat it like a real dog.

  
   At some point Eunhyuk had found himself some old books with crumbled pages, coffee stains and missing pages. When the technical text became too much, he abandoned them and decided to speak up.

  
   "Do you even have a television?" He asked, like you could expect, sounding bored.

  
   "I do, but I'm planning on selling it", Donghae answered as he started holding his breath while melting wires together with a soldering iron. Eunhyuk almost asked why, but decided to change subjects. He was curious about the brunet, and he had lots of questions in his mind.

  
   "Do you have any ..family?"

  
   "Hm?”

  
   Was Eunhyuk actually initiating a continuous conversation now?

  
   “Oh, yeah, dad passed away when I was younger, but mom lives on level 2. I meet her sometimes", Donghae told him, keeping his eyes fixed on the circuit board.

   "What about you?" Donghae appreciated the way Eunhyuk tried his best at conversing. The blond had been prepared for the question already, but he still thought twice about telling his family.

  
   “I have an uncle.”

  
   When he had taken a nap earlier, he had seen a dream about the awful experience which originally brought him into this situation. He recalled how he had been on an inspection round with one of his uncle's workers when a bunch of gang members had attacked them on the second level on one of the subway stations. Eunhyuk had escaped, but he had been chased further down to areas he didn't know much about. The grey cape had been his worst mistake then, because everyone recognized it and wasn't afraid to show their hatred towards the lord and take it out on Eunhyuk. At some point he had both of his guns stolen, and then it was all just a big blur of escaping through a narrow tunnel and then falling down a hatch. His very ‘family’ was the reason for this whole mess, but he still didn’t really know how to talk about it.

  
   "My actual family.." he started as he sighed loudly and re-did his sentence, “They.. Uhh, I'm not sure if they are around anymore. They disappeared when I was younger along with my sister, and from that on I was raised by my uncle, who you probably already know by name..” Eunhyuk tried to test the waters first before telling the whole truth.

  
   “Hm?” Donghae was getting curious, “Some politician or a public officer?” He assumed Eunhyuk talked about some high paid officer he would’ve known too, but much to his surprise the blond shook his head. “No?”

  
   “No. I’m talking about.. Gijae.”

  
   Hearing the name, Donghae froze. He took a while comprehending it, and when he turned to look at Eunhyuk, his face was plastered in disbelief.

  
   "Gijae? As in, the great Lee Gijae, the leader of Sakgan?"

  
   Eunhyuk nodded.

  
   "What the--?” The brunet almost choked on his own words, “I mean, by the cape I would've guessed you were just a random higher up citizen, but the actual heir of Lee Gijae?!"

  
   An awkward nod came again.

  
   It was common knowledge. Even Donghae knew the name. He hadn't paid that much attention to the news about what was going on in the royal family, but now he remembered why the name Eunhyuk sounded so familiar. Lee Gijae was the leader of Sakgan, and Eunhyuk was indeed the name of his nephew.

  
   Donghae really wanted to smack himself of thinking that no wonder he looked so gorgeous too. Eunhyuk had been blessed with the good genes. But now was definitely not the time to be thinking that, he thought and mentally hit his head on the table.

  
   "I'm going to jail for this”, the brunet told himself as he turned back to face his work.

  
   Ever since Donghae was a child, he had learned to respect those who had authority. He had always thought that if he'd ever have the chance of meeting someone from the royal family line, he'd bow down to that person like his parents had taught him to. But here he was, offering hot dogs and revealing every single detail of the illicit stuff he did, of the services he got paid for and of the fact that he had very much trespassed in every restricted area there was.

  
   He looked at the curly blonde again. He seemed so different and distant now that he knew. "I'm sorry."

  
   It was funny in Eunhyuk's mind. He didn’t really care about it, and the last thing he needed right now was Donghae to start treating him differently because of his social status. "How old are you?" he asked, ignoring the apology and acting as if he hadn't given the shock of his life to Donghae.

"22 actually", answered the brunet while turning his back to Eunhyuk so he could pretend he was going to continue his work. He was ashamed, but needed some minutes to accept the facts.

  
   “Then start acting like it.”

  
   Eunhyuk's photos had probably been in the papers as well, but Donghae was a person who didn't use money to buy newspapers, not to even mention tabloids. The city they lived in was a proper metropolis, and the further down you went, the more messed up life was there. To save paper and create less waste, they had stopped sending newspapers to people living on the first level. No one living there really knew what was going on since they weren’t exposed to much actual information regarding their country or city. Public announcements were heard from the radio and TV, but there weren’t a lot of people who had those either.

  
   When Donghae didn't answer to that anymore, Eunhyuk decided to continue. "I’m 22 too, if you want to know. Are you ever going to sleep, by the way?"

  
   "After this? Probably no." Donghae chuckled as he said that.

  
   "Great. Then we can both stay up all night."

  
   The sentence alone surprised Donghae even more.

  
   "Have you decided to stay?" The brunet didn't know why he had the guts to even ask that question, but he told himself it was about the injuries he cared about and not wanting company. “I mean, at least until you don’t feel so weak anymore. I know you lost quite a lot of blood.”

  
   Eunhyuk supposed he could leave anytime he wanted to now that Donghae had lost his attitude, but the blond decided against it. He didn’t even have a plan on how to get back to the sky reach without being recognized, and if Donghae were to accompany him, they’d probably capture him.

  
   The blond nodded. Donghae was right about the blood, but Eunhyuk was more interested in the brunet as a person. He didn’t want to leave just yet. He didn’t want to go back to his ‘normal life’, to the lonely dinners served by robots and lessons kept by androids. He wanted to stay at least for a short moment, because for the first time in years he had someone who, even for just some hours, had taken care of him, offered medicine and told him to rest. Donghae had had no idea about who he was, so it was refreshing how his first reaction wasn’t blinded by the status difference.

  
   Back at sky reach Eunhyuk was continuously being watched and served with fancy foods, and usually he had no one to accompany him. But this was different. This weird stranger buying food for both of them, which they both ended up sharing and eating it wherever they just happened to sit down, made him feel something that created warmth in him. Donghae didn't even have a dining table, because he used that as a working space. He had freedom that Eunhyuk didn't, and the unorganized chaos of that concept made the curly blond excited. For the first time in a long time he didn’t feel lonely, although their chemistries didn’t really match. He wasn’t sorry about his comments earlier since that’s how he was - but he had decided to control his mouth now that he had calmed down. On top of all that, why go home yet when you had the chance to be free, at least for a while?

  
   “Actually, I think I’m going to stay for a few days if that’s okay. I feel like the wound is going to rip apart if I take even one running step.” The last part was a lie, at least to a certain degree, but he couldn’t tell the truth. In the short moment he had found Donghae very interesting, and he had lots of questions in his mind.

  
   Donghae’s surprised face changed to a slight grin now.

“Sure.. but if you keep throwing those comments of yours I’m going to kick you out as you sleep.”

  
   Eunhyuk grinned too. You couldn’t call it a friendship, but the two of them knew they were past the awkward introduction part now.

  
\--

  
   Eunhyuk always thought you couldn't really fake loneliness. It was an abstract being that was there when no one else was, someone who came only when they wanted to and made sure their victims suffered. They followed him around everywhere he went, in the forms of other people who wouldn't listen or understand.

  
   He hated admitting it in such a short time, but this stranger made him feel welcome although it hadn’t been the original plan. Donghae was present in their conversations and that was enough for Eunhyuk. His life was always about behaving and obeying strict rules, and him doing only what his uncle told him to when his parents just mysteriously disappeared. He didn't know if they were dead or not, and the last memory he had of them was from his early childhood. Whenever he tried to think about it, about something that had happened and made his parents just leave him, he felt like suffocating himself in the feeling of not knowing. Eunhyuk had always been afraid that his uncle had something to do with it, just like with many other happenings in his life. The idea of him joining a worker to an inspection round had been his uncle's idea as well, and in the blink of an eye he had been thrown to the wolves just because he showed his face in the midst of those poor and miserable people who hated the lord. Now he had literally ended up experiencing a different level of reality - the reality his uncle never told him the truth about - but also the reality where Donghae lived in. These poor people who barely had money for food, and like Donghae, had no job and just spent their days doing anything they could get money out of, made him realize what the level 1 really was about. He felt pity towards them, and he felt so bad because he couldn’t do a thing. He was Gijae’s nephew, but he couldn't change it or make it better although he so much wanted to. Every decision his uncle had made had made the city worse, and he had no say in that until he would inherit the so called 'crown', which would probably be already too late.

  
   He hated it all. He didn't like the fact one bit that one day he would inherit the shithole of a metropolis someday although that could be his chance at fixing all the mistakes his uncle had done. The old geezer was the typical example of an arrogant lord who kept the poor in hunger and dumped them to live on the lower levels. The old and original part of Sakgan was the first level, which many hundreds of years ago was considered the normal city line. Now the third level was actually the city line, and below that were levels 2 and 1, partly mixed together. When the overpopulation started becoming a problem, they had started building the city higher and higher, thus creating different levels. The trains became subways, the highways became tunnels, and the normal buildings back then were now underground.

  
   The climate had changed over the years too, affecting the humidity of the whole globe. It rarely rained or snowed anymore although the temperatures had dropped, and that's why every city had to create their warmth themselves in grand boiler rooms underneath the level they called sub zero. Eunhyuk was living in the sky reach, on top of level 3, in the very building of the head of the city, and everyday his view consisted of a clear blue sky, the bright sun shining and the rooftops of skyscrapers and tall chimneys that puffed smoke no matter the time of day. It was windy and cold outside, so there was no fun in going to the balconies either. Now it was time for late autumn which made it even colder.

 

\--

  
   During the next days Donghae told Eunhyuk about many things. He taught him how to read the binary clock he had built, and he showed him his daily routines. Donghae's sleeping schedule was already a mess so he had no problems drifting off, but Eunhyuk was having a hard time getting used to the environment without sky. The biggest reason was probably that the sunlight never actually reached the first level, and there wasn't really a way to tell if it was day or night unless you had a clock with you.

  
   Sometimes the neon signs shone so brightly you would think it was moonlight, but after a while they just blended in with all of the other lamps. Eunhyuk felt very tired because of that and the wound, and he hated the pain in his stomach, but fortunately Donghae was a good caretaker at that, and together they changed the bandages and cleaned the wound regularly. Eunhyuk had some big bruises too and scratches, but that was a thing Donghae couldn’t really help with.

  
   Eunhyuk got some spare clothes from Donghae too, like sweaters and trousers a bit oversized for his slim figure, and secretly the blond liked the smell in them. Soon he learned how Donghae did his laundry, how he hung the clothes to dry on a clothesline on top of a narrow alleyway between two buildings, and how prudent the brunet was with tap water and food. He had to be, and Eunhyuk understood it when he had only eaten two small meals within 24 hours.

  
\--

  
   On the second day they chose to eat outside as the apartment started to get too stuffy for them. Eunhyuk suggested paying for himself now, but immediately faced problems with his limitless credit card. Firstly, they only accepted cash at most places, and secondly, Donghae couldn’t help noticing all the thirsty gazes who wanted to rob the pair just because of the card. Soon they both decided to just not do it, since Eunhyuk also figured his card could be tracked if he used it. Eunhyuk felt sorry since he had finally started understanding how less money Donghae actually had, but he promised he would make it up to him one day. Donghae said it was okay if they avoided the restaurants and supermarkets. These days even basic food ingredients were too expensive for him.

  
   Back at Donghae’s house, now with cheap hamburgers and fried potatoes, the two of them talked about lots of things. For example, Eunhyuk told Donghae stories about the sky reach, how ridiculously fancy they were with their indoor pools and decorations, silverware and gourmet foods, and in turn Donghae tried to find something positive about his surroundings. The almost-fairytale stories about Eunhyuk’s royal life made Donghae a bit jealous, but that's when the brunet decided he would show the best parts of level 1 and 2 to Eunhyuk when his wound had healed enough. They knew how to have fun at the second level, in the red light district or at the secret casinos hidden in the abandoned subway tunnels, and Donghae made a promise to bring Eunhyuk there later on. The blond had never been to an actual club or a bar, so he was definitely excited.

  
\--

  
   On the third day they spent the morning inside. They had switched between sleeping on the couch and bed, but today Donghae had decided to find his old mattress he could lay on the floor for himself so the blond could have the bed. Eunhyuk never asked for that, but he really didn’t give a thought to it because he was used to that kind of treatment, thinking it was normal. After setting up the mattress they went out, ending up wandering further out to level 2. They found a nice bakery there in which Eunhyuk had a hard time choosing whether to ask Donghae for some pastries or not. Eunhyuk knew he didn’t have a lot of money, but he promised he’d pay it back too. That’s when the brunet learned about Eunhyuk's weakness for sweets, and he couldn’t help but give into the temptation.

  
   “I can only afford one right now if we plan on eating tomorrow.” He didn’t mean to make Eunhyuk feel guilty about him spending money on him again, but he figured he’d want to indulge himself in a nice dessert now that he had the chance and a reason to. Living alone he never really bothered to browse the sugary treats.

  
   The brunet loved the way how the blond’s eyes lit up when he received the paper bag. As they sliced the strawberry whatever in half outside and ate it, Donghae told Eunhyuk about his liking to fish and asked if Eunhyuk had ever had any weird fish to eat. The brunet remembered eating it as a child often, but when the price of it had risen his family had quit buying it. Eunhyuk told him about tasting swordfish, tuna fish, and even octopus with rice, and Donghae felt the small tinge of jealousness again. Eunhyuk noticed it this time, the longing look in Donghae’s eyes that probably scanned for memories inside his head instead of the real view in front of him, but the blond didn’t know how to undo the effect and so decided to keep quiet. He had been slow to realize that to this point he had only talked about the good side of being from a rich family, somehow wanting to prove to even Donghae that his life was perfect although it never really was. In his mind he didn’t have the right to complain. He was taught to deny the negative side. As a child he only knew how to boast, and that kind of stuck with his personality. Now for the first time in his life he felt bad for saying something out loud, but even then Donghae said it was alright when Eunhyuk said he was sorry.

  
\--

  
   On the fourth day Eunhyuk had gone outside by himself. Donghae woke up to an empty apartment without Eunhyuk or Bada, and he panicked as he dashed outside barefoot, wearing his discoloured pajamas. There he found the pair, sitting next to each other at the staircase which led to the concrete platform in front of Donghae’s door. In the milliseconds of being worried he had felt anger and despair, but all of that was flushed down like toilet paper when he saw Eunhyuk’s head turn around, his curious face looking back at him. (Keeping in mind that their toilet piping was so advanced and wide that you could throw the paper in it.)

  
   “I… Was worried”, Donghae explained his rushing before Eunhyuk could ask anything, “..but I see that you are okay.”

The eye contact lasted for a while. Donghae felt slightly shy about it, so he felt the need to escape. “I’m.. I’m gonna make some tea”, he said shyly before he went back inside.

  
   After a few minutes the door opened again. With two cups in his hands Donghae came back outside and slowly walked down the staircase to sit next to Eunhyuk. Donghae silently offered him the cup of tea, and the blond accepted it.

  
   “Are you?” Donghae asked.

  
   “What?”

  
   “Okay.”

  
   Was he? Eunhyuk didn’t know. Yesterday he had learned what a conscience was, and it was confusing him. He took a sip, feeling the warmth spread inside him as he swallowed. He figured it was probably not the tea that made him feel like that. It was the gesture of caring again. He felt himself blush against his will.

  
   “What are we?” The blond asked back, ignoring the earlier question. Donghae looked at the man and raised his brow.

  
   “I don’t know. A beggar and a snob on the run perhaps, except that we are really not on the run, but hiding in my messy apartment?” He said as he kept his tone humorous.

  
   “You calling me a snob now, of all times?” Eunhyuk asked, trying to sound offended but yet he smiled.

  
   “The thought occurred”, the brunet chuckled. “Never seen anyone look at my stuff like they’d look at a smelly body dump. Not that I’ve ever seen one, but yeah”, he added.

  
   Now Eunhyuk’s smile faltered.

  
   “Do you mind?” He was apologetic about the stuff he had said in his shocked mind and wanted to make sure if it still bothered the brunet. Donghae could’ve been faking it all for all he knew.

  
   “At first, yes, but now I’m just kind of ignoring it because that’s just how you are.” The brunet smiled gently and looked at the other. “I’m not an idiot. You have lived in different surroundings.”

  
   To Eunhyuk it was a mystery how the brunet was still able to smile after all that had happened. In the last days and in his whole life. If the situation was to be turned around, Eunhyuk would’ve thrown the ungrateful bastard out on the very first day. He had a short temper, but Donghae had the skill to tolerate him, and Eunhyuk envied it.

  
   The days so far had been short, but the hours spent together and awake had seemed long. The blond had started to admire Donghae as a person, as someone who unknowingly hid mysteries of a perfect personality, meanwhile Donghae was more concentrated on the social status problem and the fact that half of the city would’ve probably hated him if they just knew him, like Eunhyuk had done at first. Not that he really wanted to be a member of the royal family, no, since that had its downsides too, but he was more frustrated about their differences and the fact that they were, although living in the same city, sitting side by side and still so far away from each other. He was growing an attachment to the blond because he enjoyed his company. The two of them complemented each other with their differences, but that was still a thing that neither of them wanted to accept.

  
   “But still, what are we? Friends?” Eunhyuk studied the other’s face hopefully, his sad eyes and thick eyebrows, the thin lips and the overall looking like it had been sculpted by an angel.

  
   “Do you want us to be?” Donghae asked and smirked. He had finished his tea and was holding the empty cup in his hands.

  
   “I guess.”

 

* * *

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

 

 

   On the fifth day they had no plans, but Eunhyuk, again being bored staring at the brunet continuously working on his new alarm clock, suggested if he could help with taking the laundry inside. It was a thing he was a bit curious about because he never did his own laundry, and he had seen Donghae do it before. When the brunet said ‘why not’, he smiled to himself as Eunhyuk stood up quickly and got to work. He was surprised and thought Eunhyuk would do horribly as folding the clothes was a bit foreign to him, but much to his surprise Eunhyuk succeeded in it better than Donghae. He was a natural talent.

 

   When Donghae tried to get back to work, he got a visitor. He heard three knocks for he had no doorbell, and together with Eunhyuk they exchanged looks. While the blond stopped folding the clothes and understood to hide in Donghae’s bedroom, the brunet went to the door and opened it. There he met a slightly older, Chinese man who greeted him with a bow, and had a slight accent in his speech. Donghae was quick to make assumptions that someone had come to take Eunhyuk away, but he was proved wrong as the visitor turned out to be just a new customer who needed help. Donghae saw by his clothing that he was from an upper level, perhaps the third one, and wondered why in the world would someone come to him of all people.

 

   “Hello, young man”, was the voice of an elderly person.

   “Greetings”, answered Donghae.

   “A youngster recommended your services. Kyuhyun, I think he was”, the man said. Donghae listened eagerly and thought about offering him coffee, until he remembered that he had none.

   “Yes, I do remember him”, the brunet’s face lit up in a warm smile by the memory of meeting the guy who sung on the streets, whose voice was like an angel’s and yet only asked for a simple metronome. “What would you like me to do for you, sir?”

 

   “Well, this Kyuhyun, he told me a lot about your skills; that you are a mechanic who can build and fix all kinds of robots, and I thought you might be my last chance.. I have tried to find someone who could fix my dear Mei without demanding a sum of thousands. I did contact a few experts but you know how they are - never doing their work properly and leaving me with no other choice than to pay and to contact them again and again..”

 

   Flattered that the man had come a long way just for him, Donghae listened eagerly and offered his sympathy by that act of welcoming.

 

   “I’m desperate.. So please, could you perhaps help me with my dear Mei Xing?”

 

   “Mei Xing?” That was a name for sure, but Donghae only needed the technical information. “I’m assuming she’s a robot. What model is she?”

 

   “Oh, right! You mechanics always getting straight to the point..” The man mumbled as he dug out a piece of paper from his pocket, reading the few words written on it, “She’s a PC-A, and she-”

   “Hold on, an android?”

 

   “Well, yes.. That’s why it’s such a problem. The android experts are expensive, and even they can’t pinpoint the fault. She was supposed to be in the turned on mode, but she wasn’t responding to our speech at all. We’ve checked her charger and plugins, and one of the experts even rebooted her, and now she won’t wake up at all.”

 

   Donghae hadn’t worked with androids that much. He knew the basics, such as the fact that they shouldn’t be rebooted often unless they needed updates, and that they were extremely detailed from the inside. He knew the softwares they used in them since he had read many books on the matter, but it has been over a year since he last touched an actual android.

   “I.. Uhh..” He was unsure if he should accept the job or not, but the man’s pleading eyes would make him feel guilty if he were to decline.

   “Well… Sir, I can try my best and take a look at her, but..”

   “Oh! Thank heavens! How much do you charge per an hour, young man? I can pay you twice the amount if you succeed, and my wife will gladly offer you some tea and cookies too!”

 

   Donghae figured this man probably knew he wouldn’t ask for a lot of money for his services, but he still went with it.

   “Yeah.. Sure.”

 

   “Thank you! Oh, thank you so much!” The man bowed and tightly held his own hands together in a praying like position.

 

   Donghae reasoned that at least he’d get paid if he could fix the android. “Do you want me to come right now or..?” he asked, thinking hard about what to do with Eunhyuk.

 

   “If that’s not too much of a bother for you, then yes, please.”

 

   The brunet thought about it for a while. His only option was to take Eunhyuk with him, because he they both needed Bada. Donghae needed the robot to connect it with the android’s brain, and Eunhyuk needed the robot for keeping an eye out on guards.

 

   “Alright. Let me fetch my stuff then.” Just as he was about to turn around he remembered, “Oh, right! Is it okay for my new apprentice to join us?”

 

   “Sure it is! I’ll tell my wife to offer cookies for him too.”

 

\--

 

   As the four of them were making their way to level 3 through elevated platforms and walkways, staircases between buildings that looked more like sunken ships as their diagonal selves and crowded streets with misplaced bricks, Donghae grit his teeth together when he realized he had to pay for his and Eunhyuk’s subway tickets. The blond, wearing an oversized dark blue sweater, a grey beanie covering his hair and a white mask on his face, noticed the look on the other’s face and whispered an apology. He would pay back definitely, he would.

 

   The subway itself was crowded. Eunhyuk was disguised as a normal level 1 citizen who walked alongside Donghae, and he felt vulnerable with the public around him. The brunet had his basic working attire, the brown boots and the cape as well, and he was carrying a backpack with his programming laptop inside of it plus some wires and some tools. Every time Eunhyuk experienced an eye contact with a stranger or when the two of them got judging looks from the way they dressed up, he became alerted. He was so, so weak all by himself, without the guards or any security. He had the task of carrying Bada when they went on the subway train, but he didn’t feel safe. He didn’t know if he was more scared of being caught by the troops and being taken back to home, or the public suddenly recognizing him and attacking him. There were security cameras all around level 3, at least three per a subway platform on average, and Eunhyuk stole glances at them every now and then. Were they watching him, or was he really just getting paranoid? What would he do if was caught? Moreover, why was he even scared about going back home in the first place, if that was where he was supposed to be at the very moment? He figured he only had one reason. The encounter, why he wanted to avoid it so bad.

 

   The troops wouldn’t harm him, but they would harm Donghae who was innocent.

 

   He bit his lip as he thought about it. It wasn’t like Donghae would want him to stay forever, was it? The blond’s wound was still quite nasty, but he was already feeling better to the point that he could walk long distances. He had gotten over the attack already, although his mind was still a bit scarred. Maybe he should really leave after a week had passed before it was too late.

 

   The whole journey took them almost an hour, the old man talking to the pair of younger men about his life and history, and Donghae knowing how to respond to that by keeping up the conversation. Eunhyuk was quiet, still counting the cameras and following the two of them chat away, once again admiring how easy it was for Donghae to be friendly just about to anyone.

 

   At the house - or a mansion since level 3 was much more sophisticated - of the old man, they were greeted by a lovely elderly lady who welcomed them. She had baked homemade chocolate chip cookies which Eunhyuk accepted right away. Donghae declined the offer on his behalf.

 

   When they were brought to the room where Mei Xing was, Donghae felt his breath quicken. There she was laid on the mattress on the floor, eyes closed and black, beautiful hair landing on the pillow. An android designed to look like an eight year old girl, wearing a pretty flower dress with frills on the hem and white knee-high socks on the legs. Eunhyuk studied Donghae’s silent reaction. He was hiding his nervousness well.

 

   The couple was very talkative. Maybe even too talkative for Donghae who just wanted to get to work. Eunhyuk got nervous of all the chatter since Donghae had told him to stay quiet and just let him talk in case these people recognized the blond, but Eunhyuk had no chance when the elderly lady wanted to drag him into another room to let Donghae do his work in peace. The brunet luckily noticed this and quickly spoke up, fixing the situation. “Oh, he can stay! He’s my apprentice and he needs to learn as I work, so he can stay. It’s perfectly alright”, Donghae reassured the lady and smiled like the kind sunshine he was.

 

   When they were finally left alone with the android, Donghae sighed and crossed his arms.

 

   “Alright, so.. What am I doing here exactly?” He whispered to himself, his mood changing from a happy one to the serious one.

   “Fixing it?” Eunhyuk whispered back, knowing that they could be watched or secretly listened to.

   “Her, Eunhyuk. Don’t be disrespectful.”

   “It’s just a robot for me”, the blond stated as he stared at the object.

   “But the family respects it, so we need to address it correctly as her. Now shut up before they hear us.”

 

   Eunhyuk chuckled. He knew Donghae wasn’t actually angry, ust a bit nervous of the situation. Probably because androids were expensive as heck, and this one was absolutely treasured by her owner. Donghae didn’t want to break it, obviously.

 

   After looking around the room the brunet grabbed himself a pillow, bringing it over to the android. He then gestured Eunhyuk to come closer and watch. His hands started trembling slightly when he touched the artificial skin, his fingers tilting her head in order to see the neck first. He wanted to see the basic info plate of the model, but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Donghae mumbled as he turned the android around and opened the dress from the backside to see the back. When the skin was absolutely flawless there too, he cursed as he realized it.

 

   “What is it?” Eunhyuk asked, curious, not daring to say anything else. He was used to encountering androids daily, but not of this age design.

   “It’s a newer model, which means that the information is not on the neck or back anymore. They decided to move it to a place that wouldn’t be seen so easily, giving their owners a better chance to imagine them as real humans.”

   “So, where is it?” Eunhyuk felt stupid to not understand Donghae’s agony.

   “Well, you can probably guess already.” As the brunet finished his sentence he looked down to the android's legs and furrowed his brows.

   “Please don’t get the wrong idea about me”, he lastly said with a sigh as he closed the zipper and turned her around to lay on her back again, then lifting up the hem of the fabric to expose the lower body, sliding off the pastel pink panties as well. He rolled up his own sleeve before placing his hand on the inner thigh gently.

 

   “What the--?”

 

   Eyes glued on the hand, Eunhyuk watched in shock as the brunet basically fingered - since there was no other word to describe it - around the area. It was in all ways awkward, and Eunhyuk thanked the gods that the old couple wasn’t present to see that.

   “There’s supposed to be a button somewhere around here which opens a lid, but it’s well hidden.. On the underside of that lid they have the information”, the brunet explained.

 

   As they accidentally exchanged looks to add up to the awkwardness, Donghae’s eyes lit up when he finally found it. “Oh, here.”

 

   When they heard a click they both looked down and saw a skin coloured lid open. “And off she pops...”

 

   The blond laughed out of nervousness. Donghae loved the little giggle he heard. It lightened up his mood. What were they doing, indeed?

 

\--

 

   After some hours of working, using Bada to to connect the android’s ‘brains’ and figuring out a way how to wake the piece of defined machinery up, Eunhyuk had already eaten half of the cookies. He had been very hungry and felt bad when Donghae didn’t want to eat them, but at the same time he knew he had to please the old couple.

 

   The brunet tried his best at explaining the stuff he was doing out loud so Eunhyuk wouldn’t be bored out of his mind, but at some point he was too immersed in his work that he forgot. Eunhyuk didn’t mind though, because seeing Donghae concentrating so hard on something kept him fairly entertained.

 

   “Can you fix it? Her, I mean.” The blond asked at one point when he saw how the other was thinking hard while biting his lip and staring at his laptop screen. He had three wires; red, blue and a yellow one, all connected from his old programming laptop to the plugins in the inner thigh. The laptop was synchronized with Bada’s main computer unit through a thick, black wire, and on the otherwise black screen he saw gray text that was probably the coding.

 

   “I think I could if she’d just wake up. The rebooting has caused some kind of a bug in the startup sequence", Donghae mumbled as he took a slight break to pull up his loosened sleeve and wiped his forehead.

   “Oh, it - I mean she - has been rebooted?” Eunhyuk asked.

   “Yeah. I can’t figure out how to override this broken command”, Donghae explained as he pointed at one of the lines on the screen. As he was furiously trying to think of a way, Eunhyuk started wondering as well.

   “Our butler is an android”, he started after a short silence, “One day they found it collapsed on the floor. It didn’t react to our talk at all even when it was definitely still turned on and had power left.”

   “Yeah? And what did you do then?” Donghae asked as he quickly wrote something down on his notebook which was laid down on the floor.

   “They rebooted it.”

   “And?” Donghae was listening, but only half of his attention paid on the story.

   “That worked, but we lost all of the information it had gathered, like the daily routines and the new words and names. My uncle wanted to buy a newer model to replace it, but we had been very keen on the older one, so we kept it.” Eunhyuk held a slight break before continuing, “but after a few days something happened, and they told me there had been a power outage while it had been recharging. The next day the memories had come back! Turned out that when the power had come back on there had been a huge electric shock.” It was the first time Eunhyuk had talked so much in one go. Donghae listened to the story as he typed, but stopped his writing when he finished and looked at Eunhyuk.

   “So you’re suggesting that I should just electrocute her?”

   “No! I was just.. telling a story..” The blond wailed his hands as he got embarrassed, regretting even talking about it. He thought it was unnecessary, but Donghae thought otherwise.

   “That is interesting though. Robots getting access to memories they have lost.. Almost makes them human, don’t you think?” He asked from the blond. “By learning and experiencing we create memories, and through memories we react in a certain way in upcoming situations. When your butler was rebooted, he probably didn’t react the same way as before, did he?”

   “No.” Now Eunhyuk was the one staring at emptiness, thinking about the moment when the butler had recognized him again. It was like meeting a total stranger.

   “But when he got his memories back, what did he say?” Donghae asked and glanced at the other curiously.

   “It.. _he_.. looked at me for a while and said, good morning master Eunhyuk, I’m back.”

 

   As he repeated the exact words, he understood something. He had felt joy in that moment because his butler remembered him. That’s what probably made people like androids so much. They could remember, they could learn, they could keep you company.. but they couldn’t betray you. And it was natural for humans to like it when they were remembered.

   “He knew he had been away”, the blond said to himself, suddenly feeling very mindblown about it. At the same time Donghae smiled, but was still trying to find a solution to his problem. He went back to staring at the screen, rereading the complicated line of code at the bottom.

 

   Maybe Mei Xing was away right now.

 

   What if he tried to use the words that would trigger memories from the database? To manually set the commands that would usually be just spoken? If the memories really weren’t fully destroyed in the reboot process, but just scattered around in bits and pieces, they would be accessible, right? That’s how computer memory worked. When you deleted something, it wouldn’t actually disappear in thin air. Something always remained. Why would the computer otherwise slow down throughout the years and send endless popups about full memory, even after deleting so many files? Why would it be possible to bring back deleted files and photos with a special program if there was nothing to bring back?

 

   The brunet froze for a second. He got an idea.

   “I need names”, he then said suddenly.

   “What?”

   “Names, Eunhyuk, names!” He almost shouted and stood up, grabbing his notebook with him. He dashed to the door and opened it, disappearing into the hallway and trying to find the old couple.

   When he came back, he closed the door again and hurried back to the android. He put the list of names next to him and started writing on the laptop, talking at the same time as he wrote.

   “Searching for.. Cheng Lei.. from drive C. And then also.. Lan Fen.. and Mi”, he copied the first three names from his notes. Eunhyuk stared at him and waited for an explanation, but just by looking he figured that Donghae was searching for Chinese names.

   “Shuangdao bay in Liaoning province”, the brunet mumbled more to himself than anyone, and then finally pressed enter. “And now we wait. Do you know how to pronounce Chinese names, by the way?”, he asked from the blond.

 

   “Why?” Eunhyuk looked dumbfounded as he was a bit out of what was going on right now. His technological knowledge was no match to Donghae's geeky brains.

   “I suck at them", continued the brunet. "I’m trying to manually make her reach for the memories by using familiar names, but what if that’s not enough? Maybe it’s just my hopeful thinking, but saying the names out loud at the same time could help.”

   “How?” Eunhyuk felt like a nuisance, just asking these endless why and when and how-questions, but he patiently waited until Donghae would give at least some kind of an insight.

   “Well they all have sensors and voice detect systems and whatever.. Maybe they could react to the sound. I know she’s in this stage of being half awake because the program is running, but we just need to make her wake up now", Donghae reasoned.

 

   Eunhyuk thought about it.

 

   “I have been taking Chinese lessons so I could try, but..”, his voice faltered to the humming of Donghae's laptop. The brunet was just about to ask ‘but what’ until they suddenly heard a knock at the door. When it creaked open, the lady stepped inside.

 

   “I heard lots of talking from here. How is it going, Mr. Lee?” She asked curiously as she sat on the couch next to them. Donghae was secretly worried about the fact that he had had to lift up the android’s dress and expose her lower body, but the lady didn’t seem to mind it. It was a thing some people just didn’t accept although it was necessary.

 

   He continued with the explanation. “I might have found a solution. I asked for your husband to tell me some important names so I could try and trigger her memories with them, but we were thinking if someone should say those words out loud. The search is ongoing right now, so now would be the time to do it.”

   The lady took a few seconds before she understood.

   “Of course, of course! Anything to just get her fixed.”

 

   “Yes, so please, just slowly repeat these names on the list like you would say them in a normal conversation”, the brunet instructed. The lady did as she was asked to and started listing the names. That went on for a while. Eunhyuk stayed silent for the whole time and just looked at the two, seeing how naturally Donghae worked with other people and how much he loved doing what he did. The blond was convinced that Donghae had found the solution, but when nothing happened, the brunet scratched his head.

   “Okay, so it’s not on the C drive. Let’s try D next.”

 

   That he did, wrote the piece of command and motioned to the lady to list the words again. After the first two names they suddenly heard a beep. They couldn’t be sure where it had came from because it was so faint, but Donghae knew. It caused a moment of stillness in the room. The brunet looked at the laptop screen and saw the lines move upwards as the search was still going on. “Keep going”, he whispered carefully as he also checked on Bada to see how much battery it had left. 34%, said the LED screen.

 

   When the lady listed a few more names, another beep came out. Now it was louder and everyone knew it came from the android.

 

   “I guess it’s working”, Donghae whispered. He was secretly a bit smug about it, but only so that Eunhyuk noticed it.

 

   “Mei? Mei Xing?” The brunet asked, moving next to the android and speaking directly to it. “Are you waking up?” He smiled as he talked, and the lady looked at them with hands brought in front of her mouth. When a third beep came, the elderly woman stood up and ran out of the room, shouting her husband’s name and saying something with the mixture of Korean and Chinese. “Cheng Lei! It’s working! Zhou Mi too!”

 

   The joy affected Eunhyuk as well. He was so excited he had to stop himself from jumping down from the couch to see when the android would wake up and open her eyes. As the couple came back and brought a young adult man with them, they all rushed to the mattress except Eunhyuk.

 

   “I told you this man could fix it, look!” The lady exclaimed as they quickly gathered around.

 

   When a fifth beep came and Donghae saw the text stop moving on the laptop screen, meaning that the search was done, the girl opened her eyes slowly. They were dark gray and looked empty at first, but as the startup process went on the colour changed to a deeper copper brown and the eyes blinked twice. They waited for a few seconds in perfect stillness.

 

   “Are you here, Mei Xing?” Asked Donghae first while still eyeing at the laptop. He saw as the text started moving again, words appearing out of nowhere, followed with a series of commands. It was the visualisation of how the android brain worked, and it clearly meant that she was registering what she heard.

 

   After a short while, “Yes”, was the faint answer. The family became overjoyed at once and started hugging each other except for the youngest adult who just glared at them all. He grit his teeth together as he suddenly stood up to leave.

 

   “Zhou Mi, where are you going, aren’t you happy that she’s fixed?” Asked the lady from him. Donghae sensed that the man clearly didn’t like the outcome.

 

   “You are obsessed with that doll, mom. And so is dad. It’s disgusting.” He answered as he stormed out of the room. Eunhyuk looked at the exchange of words that was happening and tried to signal Donghae that they should probably leave. He didn’t want to witness any more of that. The brunet got what he meant just by an exchange of looks, but he still needed to run a few test and finishing commands before unplugging the wires. The lady noticed their awkwardness and reassured them.

   “Oh don’t worry. He’s always like this. I’ll go after him, you pay the man, dear”, the lady said as she stood up and left the room. The husband nodded and turned back to face their little girl. Joy was beaming from his face alone, and the second the android spoke more, the man wiped a tear. They really were obsessed, Eunhyuk thought.

 

   “Mom? Dad? I can’t see anything”, said the android as Donghae was unplugging the wires as quickly as he could. He still felt awkward about the places he had to touch.

 

   “Yes, dad is here”, answered the man who was kneeling down next to the android, looking at her like the most delicate thing in the world.

 

   “Her vision will be back shortly. It’s part of the startup sequence”, said the brunet as he was shutting down his laptop and packed his stuff away. The man thanked him and told him to wait by the main door. Donghae nodded and closed the lid on Bada’s head, then gesturing Eunhyuk to leave the room with him.

 

   At the door as they put on their shoes, Eunhyuk spoke up and whispered, “I thought they were old enough to be her grandparents..”

   Donghae agreed. “Same. God knows what is going on in this family..”, he mumbled back before the elderly man appeared.

 

   “So! About the payment, young sir.”

   “Yes?” Donghae rushed to stand straight as he answered nervously, hoping that the man hadn’t heard them.

   “I told you I would pay double the amount if you succeeded, so here”, the man offered him a thick pack of notes causing Donghae scream mentally. But it didn’t end there, “..and here”, he gave another pack on top of the earlier one.

   “Wow. I..”, Donghae was almost at loss of words. “Thank you so much, mister. I’m glad I could be of help.” He felt stupid for not being able to say anything else. The amount of money had him speechless.

   “I strongly believe the joy is on our side! Have a safe journey back”, the man laughed and said, bidding the two of them farewell.

 

   When the two men were out of the mansion and the courtyard in front of it, Donghae recovered from his slight shock. Everything had happened so quickly, and he had survived without running into trouble. Now he even got paid for it. He could live the next month with that amount.

 

   “That was weird”, he simply stated.

 

   Eunhyuk chuckled next to him and agreed.

 

   “I have never held so much money in my hands at once. What do you think, how many wons are there in this, even?” He looked at the pack of notes in his hands, like a child getting presents at Christmas. It was a side of him that Eunhyuk hadn’t seen before, but which still fit Donghae’s personality. Eunhyuk was happy for him, and the fact that now Donghae could be financially stable at least for some time lessened his guilt of using Donghae’s money.

 

   “We need to celebrate this, Eunhyuk! Do you think you’ll be able to handle it? Tonight?” Asked the brown haired with a smile as they were going down the stairs which would eventually lead them to the subway.

 

   “Me? Depends on what you mean with celebrating..”

 

   The two looked at each other, and from Donghae’s grin Eunhyuk understood what he was after.

   “I’ll handle it”, he said and smiled back as he stamped his subway ticket.

 

* * *

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

 

   Eunhyuk had been drunk before, but this was the first time he had actually gone almost overboard with it.

  
   They were in the red light district of level 2 and had picked themselves a popular club to celebrate, or to be more honest, to get drunk in. The place was built into an old, shabby theatre venue. The walls had been decorated with all kinds of neon signs and blacklight lamps to cover up for the broken concrete. The music was loud, the dance floor was filled with people and on the edges of the stage they had entertainment dancers in fancy dresses that sparkled in glitter as the colourful disco spotlights shone on them.

  
   Donghae had done his best with his and Eunhyuk’s outfits as well, finding his best black jeans, white tank and a leather jacket from the back of his wardrobe to give out for Eunhyuk to wear. He had planned this from the very moment he had gotten the party idea, and since Eunhyuk had no spare clothes with him, it was easy to get him dressed up in his garments. Donghae had picked himself some clean, dark jeans as well and a simple t-shirt with a print on it, and on top he had a black baseball jacket with white sleeves. He looked stunning with his brown hair styled up, but Eunhyuk had no guts to admit it. The blond in turn had his curly hair styled messily, and together with his outfit he looked like the popular, gorgeous guy at the party, and Donghae enjoyed every second he spent with him because of the attention they got.

  
   Donghae had a collection of finer clothes for occasions like these when he wanted to celebrate or just hang around in upper levels. He would wear them so he wouldn’t be too obvious about his social status. On normal days when he was working he had the same three pairs of sweatpants to use, maybe occasionally some light brown trousers and always two pairs of boots to choose from. For the upper body he had of course basic undershirts and tanks, few jackets and a cape, but they were all worn out and old as Donghae rarely bought any new clothes. The best leather jacket and the cleanest jeans he had were presents from his parents who knew Donghae didn’t spend money on clothing. Usually the brunet was very picky about using them so they wouldn’t get dirty, but seeing Eunhyuk wear them made him lose all of those doubts. Hell, he could even give the clothes to him if he could just see him wearing them more often. He was just that delicious.

  
   On their way to the club they had paid a visit to a bar at first to get started with simple drinks. The two of them talked nonstop about everything that came into mind, and after they had finished their drinks they went back out. When they got closer to the second level, they found a store for women that was selling clothes and makeup. Donghae got a great idea of stealing a simple eyeliner along the way, and eventually he convinced Eunhyuk of putting it on in the fitting rooms. The pair was giggling madly as they sneaked into the same cubicle at the back of the store, and Donghae cursed his mind for having very bothered thoughts about it.

  
   “I have to admit it though, you look really good right now”, he said as he was sitting on the small stool in the corner while Eunhyuk was using the big mirror to put on the liner. The blond had been a bit unsure about it, but with Donghae he felt like he could do anything, even if it was crazy and illegal, or in other ways just daring. That was what life was for, right? Doing stuff you weren’t supposed to.

  
   “Do I?”, asked the blonde who looked at his reflection when he had finished both eyes. He didn't really want to admit it, but in his mind he kind of agreed with Donghae. Then again, that might have been just because of the clothes. Eunhyuk had never liked mirrors.

  
   “Yes, believe me”, Donghae said sweetly as he was staring at his nails, but when he actually looked up and saw the outcome, he raised both of his brows. Because damn, he did.

   “Holy shit, it actually does look good on you. It suits you", he said with a wide smile on his face. He was being totally honest, but he still wished that Eunhyuk wouldn't read into his compliments too much. He wasn't yet sure how far he could go with them.

   They shared a short moment of looking at each other through the mirror then, both thinking of something the other didn’t have a clue about. Eunhyuk didn’t know how to thank him, but luckily Donghae decided to end the silence.

   “We should leave before they catch us”, he said as he stood up, almost deciding to stay for a minute or two in order to just push Eunhyuk to the wall behind and kiss him like mad, but the blond’s chuckle brought him back to reality.

   “Yeah.”

  
   At the club Donghae was a bit moody when he thought about how they couldn’t be together in a romantic sense because of their differences. He sure felt attraction towards the blond, but he had no idea if Eunhyuk could ever feel like that towards him. Firstly, he was still the poor mechanic from level 1 that Eunhyuk despised, and on top of that he was crushing on the heir of their city’s leader. He felt empty as he waited for the bartender to make drinks, but that worry slowly vanished as he paid for the six shots and four mixed drinks he had ordered. At least this evening would be fun.

  
   With a serving tray he bought them all to the table where Eunhyuk was sitting at, looking like he was made to wear the clothes that hugged his body. Donghae decided that he would still do as much as he could with the blond and make their time together unforgettable.

  
   At one point, when the two of them had downed their first round of drinks, they slowly reached the tipsy state. Eunhyuk felt more free than he had ever felt before. He knew that in a club they wouldn’t be recognized. In the dim lights, squeezed between all the other visitors of the club, he got this feeling of anonymity and a rush of confidence. He didn’t feel shame of the stuff he did. No one was judging him, and the only attention he got was admiration purely because of his appearance. He liked it, and he also liked Donghae’s company and how easy it was for them to just have fun and talk continuously. Eunhyuk hadn’t laughed that much in a long time.

  
   “When we’re done with these, would you like to go dancing?” Asked Donghae as he sucked on the straw of his ice cold drink. The look in Eunhyuk’s eyes brightened.

   “The one who finishes and gets to the floor first is the winner!” He declared. The blond downed the rest of his drink in one go, and slammed the glass back on the table before he ran to the dance floor. Donghae was just a millisecond behind him.

  
   “I won!” Eunhyuk exclaimed as he reached the edge of the floor.

  
   “Unfair! We didn’t have the same amount left and you didn’t use your straw!” Donghae whined back at him, but forgot it at once when he saw the blond smiling without any restraints. He laughed as he grabbed Donghae by the hands and dragged him further to the crowd.

  
   They started dancing then, and song after song they stayed. Eunhyuk initiated a dance battle at one point, and when the alcohol reached to their heads fully, they let themselves just go. Eventually they had inched closer, to the point that Donghae had to look down if he wanted to see more of Eunhyuk’s body, and now he was being very obvious when checking the other out for the nth time. In the middle of it all Donghae’s hands found the curve of the blond’s lower back, and he just couldn’t stop himself of pulling the other closer to him. He wanted him so much that he couldn’t keep his hands away anymore.

  
   “I really hope you don’t mind me asking this, but can I kiss you?” He shouted over the blasting bass, close to Eunhyuk’s ear. He already had the advantage and he hoped with all his might that Eunhyuk wouldn’t reject him.

  
   Much to his surprise the blond grabbed his shoulders to shout in his ear, “Do whatever you want!” and flash a smile. For a second Donghae wondered if he had heard correctly. “What?!”

  
   “I said, do whatever the heck you want!”

  
   Eunhyuk was drunk, but he wasn’t wasted. He was an adventurous person, like he had been locked in a cage for his whole life and now set free for the few days he was going to be with Donghae before getting found, so why not just go with it? He didn’t want to regret anything later on, for example stuff that he didn’t do. And, it wouldn’t do any harm to anybody, right?

  
   Now that he had permission, Donghae didn’t waste any time before he pulled the other man right against his body and pressed their lips together in a hungry kiss. For a second Eunhyuk doubted himself that if they hadn’t been drinking would he have said no, but when he felt the hot rush of blood on his cheeks and butterflies somewhere in his tummy, he already forgot that doubt and just went with it. Donghae tasted good, actually better than he thought (and he had thought about it before although he didn’t want to), and Eunhyuk didn’t even notice his own hands traveling up to the other’s neck to hold his head in place. As they stopped to breathe too soon for their liking, Donghae cursed.

  
   “Shit.. Can we do that once more?” He asked loudly to reach the other in all the music and noise, eyes closed and his body glued to the blond’s. He got his worldess answer as the same lips connected with his again. The beat around them was so loud it deafened their ears, but both of them could feel their heartbeats quickening as they deepened the kiss.

  
\--

  
   After leaving the club with dizzy heads they both stumbled out on the streets. Half broken neon signs and the many red lanterns above them were spinning in their eyes. Lots of people were on the move, celebrating whatever occurrences they had in their lives, or then just rushing about their business. Eunhyuk and Donghae walked through tunnels and underground streets with mosaic patterns as decorations. As they passed a happy saxophone player next to a yet another subway entrance, Donghae decided to stop and give that guy the leftover coins in his pockets. Donghae loved the jazzy tones that dove right in his ears, so he insisted that they should stay and listen for a while.

  
   The smell of food, cigarettes and dirty trash alleys got mixed together in their nostrils, and you would’ve thought that it would chase people away, but instead many others had decided to stay and listen to the musician as well. When the song was over, Donghae went to the player to give him his reward. “What’s your name?”, he shouted over the chatter surrounding them. Eunhyuk was standing behind the brunet, looking at the scene.

  
   “Leeteuk”, came an answer, a captivating, angelic smile added. Even Eunhyuk could see the pure happiness in his eyes just from the sheer fact that he was doing what he loved to do. Donghae grinned at the contagious smile. He told the man to keep playing, waving a goodbye before turning back to face Eunhyuk. They left, walked through the area of strip clubs and bars, sex shops and back alleys, and giggled to their own stupid behavior and lightheaded feeling.

  
   At one point they came across some street clothing shops, and it was almost like they had landed into a different country and were now browsing the tourist streets. Eunhyuk was only getting started as he noticed an interesting costume shop. “Oh, boy! Costumes, Donghae look!” He said loudly as he pulled the other man from his arm, “I wonder if they have any officer outfits. Let’s go!”

  
   They had the post sales of halloween going on, and so he decided to barge in with his true snob attitude while Donghae was laughing madly as he watched the scene. Eunhyuk demanded that he needed two fake uniforms. It was his drunken mind that thought dressing up would be a good idea. His demanding nature was easy to overdo too, so he didn’t feel unsure in public in that condition.

  
   The cashier was nonchalant and didn’t seem like he knew much of their language, but he still got the word uniform. He guided the pair to the lower floor with red Christmas lights hanging on the walls, and took a package from one of the full body costume section. They had the basic nurses and city cops as well, magicians and prisoners included, but Eunhyuk wasn’t here for them. Donghae browsed the selection with his droopy eyes, trying to make sense out of the dresses.

  
   “That’d suit you..” he mumbled as he pointed at a maid dress with frills, causing Eunhyuk to snort.

  
   “Then that’s for you”, the blond stated as he nodded in the direction of a catwoman costume. Full leather and all.

  
   “Oh god no. I’m more of a dog person.” Donghae was very much traumatized by the image of him wearing that.

  
   The cashier looked like he’d be done in any minute now, so the pair of men tried to concentrate. He offered them the basic size of the android guard outfit they had, and Eunhyuk seemed pleased. This was more than perfect. He hadn’t planned it beforehand, but as he saw the royal grey colour he got an idea of buying two of them just for the sake of it. It seemed like an excellent idea. He had seen many android guards during his life. So many that he knew how they moved around, how they spoke and reacted in certain situations, and how they scanned the crowd with their hawk like eyes for anyone who had the guts to disobey law. Eunhyuk was thrilled about the idea of dressing up as one since had always been fascinated of impostors who fucked with the system by pretending to be something they weren’t, how they managed to convince people and get high paid jobs with fake degrees. An idea started to brew in his head as he studied the package - it was made from a cheaper fabric but it looked convincing. As a backlash to his uncle, he would try to mess things up and act as a guard, just because why not. Now he had the perfect chance.

  
   “What’s the prize? I’m taking two”, he told the cashier who in turn nodded and asked if they wanted to try them on. Eunhyuk would’ve said yes, but the fitting rooms of the shop seemed more creepy than an emptied grave, and they’d probably end up doing something entirely different if they were let alone, considering their making out session back at the club. So, he shook his head.

  
   As they were walking back upstairs, Donghae got concerned.

  
   “Hey, I know I have money, but I didn’t plan on buying two costumes..” At first he had been excited of just visiting the shop, but when Eunhyuk got serious with his guard thing, he realized that he was going to pay for the other’s stupid drunk idea.

  
   “I’ll pay for it, don’t worry”, answered the blond with a gentle tone.

  
   “Okay..” Donghae mumbled as he stood by the blonde who was taking out his wallet. With the alcohol affecting his mind he took a while to register. “Wait, no, are you going to use your card? You can’t!” He tried to stop him, but Eunhyuk was faster with the pin code. The blond wanted to slap his uncle in the face, and if he could prove how weak his forces really were, he would show the city who had the power here. It was the citizens who could actually have an impact, but the guards with guns had scared everyone who even thought about going against their leader. He wanted to change that and not waste his time on hiding.

  
   “Shut up”, he shot at the brunet.

  
   “Won’t you get in trouble?” Donghae was slurring, but he was still sane enough to be worried.

  
   “I don’t care really, Donghae”, Eunhyuk started as he put his wallet away and received the plastic bag from the shopkeeper, “Not anymore.” Then he thanked the shopkeeper and left.

  
   “This has to do with something that I don’t understand, right?” The brunet crossed his hands as they walked outside. “Earlier today you were scared shitless of even going outside, but now you end up spending money on two halloween costumes? What do you plan on doing with those anyway?” The tone of their conversation was getting louder and the earlier shopkeeper was staring at them. Donghae was angry because he had been so careful with the money thing, and now Eunhyuk just had to go and ruin it. He thought Eunhyuk really didn’t think it through what he was about to do.

  
   “As I was drinking, I realized something”, the mentioned blond started explaining, “I don’t know if the alcohol or being with you washed the fear away or something, but I decided that I’m done being weak.”

  
   “You are not weak!”

  
   “By hiding I am, just like the rest of the people in this city! They are scared of the authority, and it’s not supposed to go like that!”

  
   “It’s called being cautious! Now he’ll find you and take you back! And why is this suddenly about the politics?” Donghae was confused, and he was bad at holding it inside while being drunk. Eunhyuk tried to tone his shouting down when he realized they were attracting too much attention. He leaned in closer to Donghae so he could whisper.

  
   “I’m going to smack my uncle in the face and show him how easy it is for someone to infiltrate the guards. If I go back now, everything will be back to normal again and I can’t do shit until he dies! Are you saying I should wait for it and then have to correct his mistakes?”

  
   “What? Infiltrate?! Are you out of your mind?”

  
   Eunhyuk was getting frustrated. “That’s exactly what I mean, you are all so scared of him that you run away when someone even mentions him!” He quickly turned on his heels and started walking away, with the costumes in his hands. Donghae looked at him with a blank face before realizing that he should probably follow.

  
   “Where are you going?’ He asked now with a lower tone, trying to act like the earlier hadn’t happened at all. He failed.

  
   “Back to your place. At least I used the card here and not near your apartment. What can my uncle do, tell me? He can’t just execute me. I’ll get caught eventually anyway so I just have to make my remaining time useful.”

  
   “But he can execute me.” The brunet was getting slightly offended about this conversation.

  
   Eunhyuk froze for a second. He stopped walking and turned around to face the brunet. “He won’t. I’ll plan it so they can’t track it down back to you.”

  
   Donghae knew it might’ve just been drunk talk as he didn’t know how the other was usually like when he was under the influence, but he only sighed because he knew he couldn’t change Eunhyuk’s mind. He wanted to believe him and trust him, but he didn’t really get the whole point behind this idea. He wanted to have fun, but now it had turned into a serious matter? Donghae supposed it had something to do with their family, going to the extent of putting the city’s security on the line.. Or maybe he could understand better when he had sobered up.

  
\--

  
   When they arrived to Donghae’s apartment, Bada was there excitedly wagging its tail by the door. Inside Eunhyuk took out the costumes from the plastic bag and opened the packages.

  
   “Are you seriously planning on doing it right now? That we should play guards in this condition?” Donghae still didn’t like the idea, but he was already in a weaker position.

  
   “No, idiot, we’ll do it tomorrow. I have a plan already, but I’ll risk too much if we do it know”, he reasoned, making Donghae relieved at least for the time being.

  
   “Well, now that we’re back early, what should we do?” The brunet was slightly mad about their ruined mood. He was still haunted by the taste of Eunhyuk’s lips, and the warmth of the moment when they had kissed, but he knew he couldn’t go back to that. He had missed his chance of doing more.

  
   “I don’t know. Try on the outfits? I know how to modify these so they look authentic. Do you have a sewing machine?”

  
   “I do but..” Donghae mumbled as he scratched his head.

  
   “Did you plan on selling it as well or is it not working?”

  
   Yeah, Eunhyuk’s stubborn self really came out when he was drunk.

  
   “Whatever. It’s in that corner. Dig it up yourself”, Donghae instructed as he walked to the sofa and let himself fall on it.

  
   “And thread?”

  
   “On the shelf I think. Second box on the left.” He said as he threw his hand in the direction of the furniture and closed his eyes. Whatever. Maybe he’d be able to talk in the morning.

  
   At some point, in the midst of Eunhyuk’s cursing and sewing, he just couldn’t resist the urge to pass out.

 

* * *

A/N: This and the next one were originally one chapter but I divided them so that's why it ends a bit abruptly.


	6. Chapter 6

  
  


 

  
   On the sixth day Donghae didn’t bother checking on Eunhyuk in the morning. He felt the headache kick in at the very moment he opened his eyes after being woken up by the blast of the alarm clock. Last night he had forgotten that he had an alarm set for 8AM. He was supposed to meet up with a person who would buy his television at half past. As he hurriedly stood up, changed his clothes back to normal ones and forced himself to drink at least a glass of water, he left his apartment in a rush, carrying the small television with him with a lot of difficulties.

  
   After getting to his destination on the second level, he felt his hands tremble from carrying the television for too long. As the buyer arrived and they did their trade, Donghae sighed in relief. He had finally sold the television and gotten good cash out of it, at least to cover the expenses of last night. When he was on his way to buy two icy slush drinks to treat himself and Eunhyuk when he’d wake up, he came across a newspaper stand. There was a boy next to it shouting out loud the newest headlines, but what caught his attention most was the big announcement on the front page. 'Leader's nephew missing after being attacked - Have you seen this person?' and then an official photo of Eunhyuk in his formal cape. It wasn’t a paper that would reach the whole city, but Donghae immediately knew the word would spread fast. Forgetting the slushies altogether he hurried back to home at once and shouted Eunhyuk's name at the very moment he stepped into his apartment. He was still panting, and when he didn't see the blond anywhere, he didn't even bother to take his shoes off when he ran straight to the bedroom.

  
   There was Eunhyuk, peacefully sleeping with his doll like features and one lidded eyes, soft curls landing on the pillow and the blanket moving up and down as he breathed. He whined as he started waking up to Donghae’s noisy entrance. Bada was on the floor keeping a watch out like Donghae had ordered him to while being plugged into a charger next to it, and the robot was perfectly alright. The brunet sighed to himself and stared at the two of them for a bit longer until he believed that Eunhyuk really was still here, and that he could go back and relax for the time being. Maybe he had been a bit angry last night, but in the end he really cared for the other. He couldn’t stay mad for too long, especially if the ‘fight’ had happened while they had been drinking.

  
   He took off his shoes, made some tea for himself and sat on the couch, trying to get rid of the headache with willpower. He was nervous because a public announcement meant that they would probably send out troops to search for Eunhyuk within the next days. If they were to find out he had been staying with Donghae for the whole time, they would most likely accuse the brunet of keeping him hostage or something even more absurd. They would interrogate him and not believe a word he would tell them. On top of that he would totally end up in-

  
   "Where were you? Did something happen?", mumbled the blond who had been stirred out of sleep. The brunet looked at the other man standing on the doorway, thinking how absolutely perfect he looked after just waking up, and how hopelessly he had liked having the other there, even if it meant dealing with his expensive taste, stupid ideas and stubborn personality. He felt awful about the whole situation. You know what they said about the whole losing someone thing - that only after loss you start to realize how meaningful it was.

  
   Before answering he took a sip of his tea. "Yes, I.. I saw a newspaper announcement about you." Donghae gulped anxiously and avoided eye contact, staring at emptiness in front of him. He tried thinking about things of what to do next. He didn't see the moment when Eunhyuk's face fell, but he felt the change in the atmosphere. They both knew.

  
   “Still want to infiltrate the guards?” Donghae asked, obvious sarcasm in his voice.

  
   “Look, I’m sorry about.. that”, Eunhyuk answered as he nodded towards the costumes he had modified during the night. Donghae hadn’t even noticed the difference, but now that he looked at them he was impressed of how authentic they actually looked. He was still against the idea though.

  
   “I’m not doing it. If I get caught, I’ll be fucked. If you get caught, I’ll be fucked. I know you can talk yourself out of it, but I doubt that you can save me.”

  
   Eunhyuk understood his reasons, the brunet was right, but he didn’t want to do it alone. He felt more capable when he had someone with him - especially a person like Donghae. The brunet knew how to fix robots, and now that he had seen him do it to an android, Eunhyuk believed that they could make a very powerful pair.

  
   “What do I need to do to make you comply?”

  
   Donghae looked at the man still standing by the bedroom door frame, his left hip leaning on it. Being a man, all he could suddenly think was sex. He didn’t dare saying it out loud, but he spent a long while considering just for the sake of it. As a man who lived alone, and a person without any love interest in some while he believed that those facts alone justified his thoughts. The kiss was still bothering the brunet through his cloudy memories.

  
   “We should talk”, he finally suggested when he had been staring long enough.

  
   “About? Why are you taking this so seriously!” Eunhyuk’s calm self was again replaced by the loud one.

  
   “It’s not a joke! Maybe for you because you have lived in sky reach and been protected by the robots, but not for me who has to run away from them!”

  
   It was a weird realization to even Donghae himself. He was more scared about the robots than people, meanwhile Eunhyuk was the exact opposite. “Just explain why, Eunhyuk, so I could try and understand.”

  
   After a while of steadying his breath, the blond gave in and walked to the couch, sitting down next to Donghae. He crossed his legs and turned to face the brunet.

  
   “I know it’s an idea I got while I was drunk”, he started, “but after I thought more about it, I became to realize the effect of it. Imagine us pretending to be androids.” He looked at Donghae, and his tone was very serious.

   “I know the place where their maintenance happens. We could sneak in there. On field they are alerted all the time, but maybe we could find ourselves a way to reprogram or shut down one of them when they are off duty. I have access to anywhere, and you have the skill to reprogram.”

  
   The brunet still didn’t understand. “Why?”

  
   “To cause a tiny havoc. Just a small one. We’ll take their guns and find a place to shoot a few of them. Or, you program one to shoot other guards.” Eunhyuk was very enthusiastic about it, and for a second Donghae felt bad for him because he was the one who denied it.

  
   “And?”

  
   “And, that’ll lead to the revelation that guard androids are not unbeatable. They can be hacked, no one just dares to go close to them. My uncle will get furious about it, and all the people living here will see that he isn’t so powerful after all.” Eunhyuk’s eyes were focused, and Donghae sensed the flame of motivation burning inside of him.

  
   “So this is all to just piss of Gijae?” The brunet thought he understood the reason now, but at the same time it was still a stupid reason. He wanted to keep provoking the other for a little longer.

  
   “No! Well, kind of yes, but don’t you realize the advantage? The people will see that and they’ll understand that the robots aren’t perfect. They’ll understand that Gijae is not behind a bulletproof glass - although his windows are made of that - but either way! They can stand against him!”

  
   Donghae looked at him like he’d be talking to a madman. “You are nuts.”

  
   “I have to do it before they find me. This is my chance, Donghae. Or not mine, but ours. I need you.

  
   “Sounds like you are planning a revolution.”

  
   Donghae couldn’t keep his small chuckle to himself anymore. Of course he was secretly all against the current leader, but he had learned how to live his life without hoping that things could get better. The brunet had given up a long time ago. But what if Eunhyuk’s plan came true? Thinking about it, he slowly became to realize that maybe, maybe Eunhyuk was just the key to it. No one else would do it anyway. And what else was there to lose, really? Maybe the only regret he could have in the future was to not agree with Eunhyuk now and end up walking separate paths.

  
   After a while of pondering he finally gave in.

   “In two conditions”, said the brunet.

  
   “That are?”

  
   “First, you’d better stay alive.” That might’ve sounded a bit foolish, but Donghae was serious. He didn’t usually get involved with anyone because when he did, the important people always disappeared from his life sooner or later, but maybe he could trust Eunhyuk. Maybe this was really their chance to start fixing things by first messing them up.

  
   “And?”

  
_Get in bed with me._

  
   “The second.. uhh.. I’ll think about it later on.”

  
   “Deal.”

  
\--

  
   They decided to get going at nightfall.

  
   Standing in front of the mirror, both dressed up in formal, royal grey uniforms and cop-like hats on their heads, they studied themselves. They both looked captivating. Eunhyuk had done a good job with the sewing, and together they resembled the real android patrols that moved in pairs and had their eyes over the city. Donghae was getting weak over how gorgeous the blond was, his belt going around his waist like it was tailored just for him, and the slight paddings adding the sharp angular shape to his shoulders. Feeling a mixture of jealousness and proudness, Donghae wondered that Eunhyuk probably looked fine in everything. What he didn’t know though was that Eunhyuk had the same kind of thoughts about him too.

  
   The blond had told Donghae about the basics of android guard behavior, and together they had practised them in front of the mirror. Donghae owned two pistols, so he had taken one for himself, giving the other to Eunhyuk just for emergency cases.

  
   Just as they were about to leave the apartment, in the last moment Donghae collected up his courage and grabbed Eunhyuk by the hand, pulling him back and slamming him against the door before he could open it.

  
   “Before we get going..”, he breathed down on the other’s lips with no shame, “- now that I finally agreed to put this thing on - my second condition.”

  
   “Y-yes?” Eunhyuk was taken aback and put his hands on the other’s shoulders to push him away if he soon needed to, but the aura of authority that Donghae had with the uniform on and the fact that they were pressed against each other made him feel the same rush of eagerness that he had experienced in the club. Instead of pushing him away, the blond wanted nothing more than to just keep him there. He noticed the tension between them building up. It was a thing he tried to ignore since he knew they shouldn’t do stuff like that. He liked Donghae’s company, he really did, but yet he acted oblivious on purpose when it came to showing interest. Being weak to the tease he nevertheless gave in and let himself enjoy it while it lasted. If Donghae initiated it, he’d be fine it it.

  
   The brunet almost jokingly said it, that he wanted to see Eunhyuk wear the same outfit again so he could take a polaroid photo as a memory (to jack off to), but at the very last moment decided against it. He bit his lip as he forced himself to think of something else, otherwise he would’ve made a fool out of himself.

  
   “No matter what happens, if we get caught, separated, lost from each other or something, please promise me that you won’t betray me. I’m trusting you, and I’m serious when I say I don’t want to get caught”, he mentally pat himself on the back for figuring out so smoothly what to say.

  
   Though he wasn’t lying. That was one of the main reasons Donghae didn’t want to go out to the upper levels that often. He just wanted to stay in his house. The brunet was afraid of Gijae’s power, and he knew he’d be punished badly if he was ever caught. The things he did, such as minor hacking and reprogramming and going to the waste dumps, were small things and a part of his normal life, but if the guards and police suddenly wanted to investigate him, they’d figure it all out. They would find a lot more than meets the surface from Donghae’s past, which the brunet was never really proud of. As a young teen you tended to get involved in all kinds of things.

  
   Eunhyuk was a bit dumbfounded that Donghae’s second option had nothing to do with his actions. They were still standing close together, lips almost touching and breaths mixing. Conflicted, he was slightly disappointed but still nodded and just answered, “Promise.”

  
\--

  
   “So, where do we go?” Asked Donghae when the two of them had left to the nearest level 2 subway station. People had been looking at them very differently and had always quieted down when they walked past. Eunhyuk’s hair was styled differently, and a part of if was hidden under the hat so he wouldn’t be so easy to recognize. Donghae had styled his hair up so that the hat would cover it too, seeming like he had almost shaved all of his hair short.

  
   “We need to go south”, answered Eunhyuk as they walked through the crowd. Good thing was that androids were made to resemble humans, and hey also initiated small talk and conversed with each other.

  
   In the subway the two of them bought themselves a day ticket to all zones, although in reality android guards had these so called built in travel cards that let them use every train and bus, anytime and anywhere they wanted to. They were robots so they didn’t really take advantage of that. And, Eunhyuk did have an all access card, but he didn’t want to use it since it could be tracked. For the same reason he was a bit angry at himself for using his credit card while he was drunk.

  
   When they reached the subway platform, Eunhyuk spoke up again, “I checked the map before we left. We need to use three different lines.” He didn’t watch Donghae at all, and tried to move his mouth as little as possible. “Just follow me and don’t speak. We have to keep our eyes looking straight ahead.”

  
   “Shades would’ve been helpful..” Donghae mumbled, making Eunhyuk let out a small chuckle.

  
   “That is true.” The blond bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t smile any longer.

  
   On the train Donghae felt nervous in the midst of all the other passengers. Could they see that they were faking it? Was he too obvious being human, even though androids were usually mistaken as humans in the daily life anyway? What were actually the things that made someone an android; was it just the robot insides or perhaps their ammunition storages? The real guards had guns that could be loaded straight from their wrists as they were shooting, and they didn’t think twice before that. They lacked empathy and other feelings, but were still programmed to be able to take part in any kind of conversation.

  
   As they were sitting tightly next to each other in the stuffy train, Donghae got lost in his thoughts. Eunhyuk stole a glance at him and noticed how creepy and brain dead the brunet suddenly looked. That was some really good acting, he thought.

  
   They changed the subway at three different stations, and when they reached their final stop they got out, Eunhyuk leading the brunet. Now they started to notice a lot other guards walking around as well. This was level 3 and the southern part of the city where the big river went through, dividing the part of town in two sections. Behind a bridge that was swarming with guards was an enormous factory-like building with a pair of short chimneys. Eunhyuk knew it was the maintenance unit. He knew the way there because he had been there just some months ago, and he had seen the different rooms and hallways inside. Different sections took care of different kinds of problems, and at the top floors they had a human or two working on some detailed things if there was some new programming to do. Other than that guards were very independent and they just went there to get new guns, outfits or nice oil baths by themselves.

  
   After walking for what seemed like an eternity to Donghae, they finally got to the other end of the bridge. As they mimicked the walking of the other guards around them, eventually they got to the entrance doors where every android had to stamp a card of some sort, and following Eunhyuk’s lead Donghae flipped his subway ticket around and stamped it. The machine didn’t actually read the text or scan anything, so they just got through with that. Donghae found it very interesting and confusing.

  
   Inside everything was automatic. There were no signs anywhere because they weren’t needed, and every single guard already knew where they were supposed to go to. They all formed six queues to get into six different elevators, all at least 5 metres wide. The hall was packed, it smelled like oil and steel, and the only sound that was heard came from the walking. No one talked.

  
   It creeped Donghae out. He followed Eunhyuk to the elevators where they had to squeeze between the unforgiving androids and ignore the claustrophobic feeling. On the 18th floor they stepped out and continued to walk through a tunnel with dim blue lights. It had different rooms on the sides of it, almost like a hotel, and every single door had a different bar code painted on it. The hallway wasn’t too packed, so Donghae could see how the robots scanned the codes with their white, horizontal scan lights. He wanted to ask what the hell were they doing and where Eunhyuk was taking him, but as one of the doors slid to the side and let someone inside in front of them, Donghae could see a glimpse of the huge room with weapons and ammunition. His pulse quickened when he realized that they were walking to the very end of the hallway. There Eunhyuk pressed the door opening button with a smile on his face from the success. They stepped into a room with handguns and all kinds of security gear. When the door closed behind them, the blond whispered a small “Wait” as he dug out a small laser from his pocket. He had planned it all out, and had all the stuff he needed with him. With the laser he pointed straight at the surveillance camera in the corner of the room.

  
   “We’ll have about seven minutes, maybe fourteen if we’re lucky. The human guard in the surveillance room is looking at all the cameras. The odds are that he won’t immediately notice a white screen in the hundreds of screens he has to stare at. If he does however, the walk distance from the surveillance room to here will probably take about 7 minutes”, he explained before walking further out to the room and started to browse the collection on the shelves. First he picked himself and Donghae belts with two gun holsters, and then proceeded to choose the standard guns for both of them. Eunhyuk thought it had been almost too easy, and the thrill of it made him want more. He needed more challenge.

   “Change of plan, Donghae. After taking the guns we’re gonna get the real uniforms.”

  
   “Why? Don’t we already have these?” It was the first thing Donghae said after they had entered the building. He was slightly sad because Eunhyuk had used so much time on the sewing and still aimed higher. Being afraid that they would get caught at least by then, like an addicted poker player bidding more and more money, he wanted to say no.

  
   “They look good, but that’s not enough. The real ones have kevlar in them. We’ll need that.”

   The mention of bulletproof clothing caused a small fright in Donghae. Eunhyuk noticed it and tried to make up a positive side to it. “You could sell it afterwards to get a fortune if you don’t want to keep it. I suppose you guys have a black market or something.”

  
   Indeed they did.

  
   Donghae sighed. “More things to add to my criminal record”, he blatantly commented.

  
   When they had picked enough ammunition to go with their four small handguns and Donghae’s extra pistols, they left the room. The pair had to go back to the elevators so they could go lower. As the lift arrived to their floor, Donghae was almost pushed down by a man dressed in black who rushed past them. He stood out from the guards, and from his passing smell Donghae immediately noticed that he was human. Androids all smelled the same, so he had already gotten used to the smell inside the building and he couldn’t miss the obvious cologne of the person.

  
   “The surveillance guy”, Eunhyuk whispered to Donghae as silently as he ever could while they stepped into the elevator.

  
   Through the glass walls of the lift they saw the whole area beneath them, the main lobby and the fence, the area behind it filled with different kind of robotic doors and conveyor belts moving nonstop. Stepping out when the lift had gone lower, they walked across the same kind of hallway as before, but now with white lights. Eunhyuk picked the fifth door and did the same laser trick with the camera again. Donghae was in awe of the knowledge and skills of the other, almost like the blond had been working as a secret agent or something.

  
   The room had hundreds of uniforms, all wrapped up in plastic and made the same size so the factories could manufacture them more easily and make them fit any standard guard android.

  
   “We should change now”, Suggested the blond who started taking his clothes off immediately. Donghae got a bit shy at that although there was no reason to, but he tried his best to not look at Eunhyuk while he was changing.

  
   When the two of them were done, guns on their hips and black buttons closed all the way up, Eunhyuk said that he needed to get rid of the fake ones now. He rolled the pieces of fabric to a big ball and motioned Donghae to leave the room first. The brunet did so, and together they walked back out, passed the hallway and took the lift down. Key to everything was just to look determined and know what you were doing. No one would suspect a thing. He would’ve thrown the fake outfits away, but being scared of the possibility of someone finding them, he decided to burn them later on.

  
   Together they took their leave out of the building, stamping their subway tickets again now from the other end and holding their breaths as they stepped outside. Donghae could not believe he had just done that. He had sneaked into the creepiest place he had ever witnessed, and come out alive. He kept his face together until they got to the end of the bridge and were now free to go back to the subway. Around them, since it was level 3, were floating cars going around on different roads built on top of bridges. When they crossed the first road, he allowed himself to loosen up.

  
   “That was almost too easy..”

  
   “Thank me for it. Without me you wouldn't have been able to.”

  
   “Without you I wouldn’t have even considered it.. but man, their surveillance sucks!” The brunet noticed how the tension was now being released along with his nervous laughter, at the same as he was left very much confused of the level of security Gijae had or didn’t have. It was all just a big bluff, wasn’t it? It seemed scary, but with the right knowledge you could beat it easily.

  
   When Donghae had calmed down from his chuckling, they entered the subway. “What do we do next, then?” He whispered to Eunhyuk although their carriage was almost empty. It was a weekday, and the clock was slowly reaching 3AM. It kept the level 3 underground fairly empty. Donghae felt a bit tired already, but Eunhyuk still had the adrenaline going on because of their adventure.

  
   “We need to find a random patrol and shoot them”, was the blond’s answer. Donghae looked at him like he had seen a ghost. Eunhyuk spoke so quietly and so neutrally that you wouldn’t have believed he was talking about ‘killing’ public property.

  
   “And where do you suppose we find that?” Donghae was intrigued by how easily Eunhyuk came up with new ideas just after finishing doing their earlier one, but slowly he started to get used to their little plan. Revolution didn’t sound bad at all, anymore.

  
   “You tell me. You know the way around here”, Eunhyuk said and looked at Donghae maybe a bit too much warmth in his eyes. He had started to admire the brunet. They made a perfect pair, both supporting each other’s weaknesses with their strengths and knowledge. Without Donghae’s support the blond wouldn’t have been able to do anything. And he was totally right, Donghae knew the tunnels and alleys, he had walked there so many times he could probably find his way eyes closed. Sometimes, if there was an area Donghae hadn’t been to, he’d still be able to find what he was after. He knew how the city worked and he had the skill to calculate just by looking where he’d end up if he, for example, chose a dark unused tunnel instead of a public walkway and stairs. Or, perhaps used the ladders and roofs instead of public transport.

  
   “Well.. I know the Gimcho region has a plaza where they usually gather and start their rounds, and I know it because I avoid it”, explained Donghae after he had thought about it for a while. Gimcho was the part of the third level where usually all the commotion was happening. The plaza there was originally built as an open area market for mechanics to sell their old robot parts and other inventions, but as the government had strictly denied the selling of those the whole market system had been taken down. People were ripped off from their extra earnings and chances to live their lives. Now it was just a large area of broken mosaic with missing tiles and a wonderful memory to be surely missed.

  
   “Are there any buildings around it?” Eunhyuk asked, clearly planning something again. Donghae noticed that, but he didn’t ask. He would know, eventually.

  
   “Of course there are.”

  
   “How high?”

  
   “Five stories on average, I think.. around three to six”, was the brunet’s guess.

  
\--

  
   As they arrived to the plaza with practically no one walking there and all the restaurants closed across the sidewalks, they chose their target. “Follow me”, said Eunhyuk and ran to one of the back alleys he saw. Donghae followed, the night’s coolness caressing his cheeks and freezing his fingers. The sky was clear tonight, the fascinating city line in the horizon with a thousand lit windows and the high chimneys spitting out smoke to sometimes cover the moon. Above it all were the most beautiful things to him - the visible stars. The brunet would’ve wanted to stay and look at them for a while, but he knew he didn’t have time.

  
   Eunhyuk had asked Donghae to find them a route to the nearest roof. With those instructions the brunet seeked for a ladder to climb up and a fence to climb sideways until they got to the top. It wasn’t a tall one, maybe only three or four floors up, but still high enough to hide the two. There was an edge they could use for their advantage too, which was perfect.

  
   Eunhyuk didn’t give a warning before he took out his gun and shot once straight to the air, startling Donghae who looked at him like he had gone mad. “What the fuck?!”

  
   “Calling the guards. Shhh”, Eunhyuk hissed and kneeled down next to the edge. He looked at the street that lead to the plaza and listened carefully for every sound that was echoing from between the short buildings. This part of town was actually quite cozy, and it looked like only some old couples lived there nowadays, so Donghae felt slightly disturbed by the fact that Eunhyuk was ruining their good night’s sleep. The windows had Christmas lights on them and they could smell the newly baked pie from somewhere near, probably cooling down next to an open window. But wait, who the hell baked at 4AM?

  
   The night was a chill autumn night, and the cold temperatures surrounding the globe almost reached the freezing point in the night time. The city’s boiler rooms didn’t really reach out to the third level. Inside apartments that problem had been solved with personal water sharing units; they had heated houses and old fireplaces too, but outside it was still cold as heck.

  
   When the loud talking and the running steps were getting closer, Donghae studied how Eunhyuk’s trick had once again succeeded. He had shot a bullet to attract the guards to their direction. Soon there was a trio who came out and was running across the street, only to be stopped by an elderly lady who happened to open her door nearby and scream for help although no one else was there.

  
   “Now, Donghae..” The blond whispered as he was leaning on the edge, his body almost horizontally laying down on the cold stone. He placed his handgun on the hard concrete to support his aim. Donghae did the same because he knew Eunhyuk couldn’t shoot them all at once, and if they were to shoot one of them, the others had to be shot too.

  
   The guards had stopped to talk to the lady at one of the doors. The conversation they all shared was heated, the lady being scared and the guards not knowing where the gunshot had come from.

   “Who is a better shot?” Asked Eunhyuk as his gun clicked when he adjusted the safety off.

   “I might be.” Donghae wasn’t sure about Eunhyuk, but at least the brunet carried a gun with him almost every day and sometimes even practiced shooting with it. “Easy targets, but a bit far away.”

  
   “Okay. You take out the two on the right, I take the one on the left?”

  
   “Sure.” He didn’t know why he was listening to this mad blond, but something in his gut told him that he just had to. He had already gone so far, so why give up now? And, if they wouldn’t be caught, it wouldn’t even matter, right?

  
   Next Eunhyuk started the countdown.

  
   “Three..”

  
   He had been using guns before only in the shooting galleries, but he had a steady hand.

  
   “Two..”

  
   He knew his aim was good and that the wind tonight was very nonexistent.

  
   “One.”

  
   Three quick bangs filled the air. The guns didn’t have silencers, so the next thing Eunhyuk knew was the ringing in his ears and the act of throwing himself down on the cold concrete under him. Donghae had the same reflex. Distantly they could both hear the old lady screaming, probably the one the guards had been talking to, and from the two of them only Donghae was sorry. Eunhyuk was breathing rapidly as he didn’t dare to move, but the brunet rose up on fours and tried to pull Eunhyuk with him because the blond was in some kind of a frozen state. Together they crawled to the other end of the roof and steadied their breaths as they sat down, backs against a small brick chimney which was radiating warmth.

  
   The sounds started getting clearer now, but soon they understood that there was no one left on the street. The lady had gone inside to call for help meanwhile the nearest of the night shift guards were at least three blocks away. So, all of their bullets had hit their targets?

  
   “We have to go, Eunhyuk”, the brunet tried to get the other moving, “Stand up and follow me”, he whispered and dragged the blond by his arm. He looked around to find a way to get from their roof to another roof. As he saw a wide, metallic ventilation pipe, he put away his gun and tried to get Eunhyuk back on track, who was not capable of thinking an escape route right then. No one had seen them, they had successfully put down three androids and started their rebellious path to freedom, and it had been his idea. He had done it, and he couldn’t believe it.

  
\--

  
   They headed straight to Donghae’s apartment, purposefully using a different route. If someone were to see two panting guards going into an apartment and never coming out, they’d be suspected at the very second they showed their faces in the windows.

  
   It was almost 5AM now, and Bada was joyfully wagging its robot tail at the pair who arrived. Eunhyuk had calmed down already from his first shock of shooting someone - or something - and Donghae decided to offer him something warm to drink.

  
   “I’m sorry I did that, Donghae”, apologized the blond as he received his warm cup, “It didn’t really go according to my plan”, he said as he sat down on the sofa, still in his gray uniform and guard hat, looking again way too fine for Donghae’s liking.

  
   “What was your plan exactly, then? I thought it went well, but you didn’t really tell me”, he said and sat down too. He wasn’t angry, but rather amused. At least they had gotten away.

  
   “I got carried away, sorry. My initial plan was to program or cheat one of them to shoot the others, but I couldn’t find a way how to do that. So I decided that we shoot them with their own weapons”, Eunhyuk explained as he kicked off his shoes and lifted his feet up on the sofa.

  
   “Are the guns trackable?”, asked the brunet. Eunhyuk looked up at Donghae.

  
   “What do you think, after seeing how loosely the maintenance building works?”

  
   “No?”

  
   “Although they seem to be hi-tech, their system has been kept the same for years.”

  
   “Mhm.” They held a small silence before Donghae continued. “Well, I think it was a good decision. All the other scenarios I can think of would’ve been too risky. Like, shooting just two out of three so we could hack the remaining one? Nah. He could still call for help and record our faces”, he reasoned with a calm voice, smooth to Eunhyuk’s ears after that horrible gunshot. “And shooting one to the leg wouldn’t really do any harm, or the arm or stomach.. Their motherboard is in their chest and the sensors are in their head. Headshot would only do the trick for the sensors, but eliminating the motherboard is a complete kill. I aimed for their chests, what about you?” He looked at Eunhyuk curiously as he sipped his tea, feeling funny of the way they conversed about the topic. So calm, so.. domestic.

  
   “I can’t remember really.. but at least I know it wasn’t moving anymore. I saw it fall down. Not like it would matter though, they didn’t see us so we’re good”, Eunhyuk murmured as he took a sip of his cup. “It’ll be enough for tomorrow’s headlines”, he lastly said.

  
   Eunhyuk thought the tea he had received tasted good, just like Donghae’s tea always did. Back at home it was too plain, or maybe they just lacked the act of caring and right timing with the herb bag in the boiling hot water. Robots never cared or put feelings into cookings, but Donghae automatically poured his love into his tea, or so to say. His aura was that romantic, and didn’t the scientists once find out that someone else’s cookings usually tasted better because the person’s whatever particles get attached to the food and make us like it?

  
   “We’ll see about that. Tomorrow’s headlines will be bigger than the page itself I think”, Donghae commented, taking one last sip before he stood up slowly, took the cup to the kitchen and then walked to the mirror to admire himself for one last time before taking off his attire and ending his night.

  
   “This grew on me”, he confessed, “I like the way it looks and feels. The kevlar and all.”

  
   “Told you.” Eunhyuk smiled and let out.

  
   Donghae returned the smile without knowing as he started unbuttoning the front and taking it off. “We have to hide them”, he stated, giving Eunhyuk the clue to start taking off his as well. The blond finished his tea first and then followed Donghae’s command, not knowing the reason why he felt so nervous suddenly. Donghae’s back, he had seen it before, but seeing it as he was taking off that uniform was.. simply hot.

  
   With that haunting image stuck in his mind he took off his own garment and went to bed after finishing his evening routines.

 

* * *

 


	7. Chapter 7

  
  


 

 

_“You look stunning”, he heard the warm, sensual voice behind him whisper. They were standing in front of a mirror where their reflection showed that they had their guard uniforms on, but the other man had his arms wrapped around the blond’s body, fingers making their way onto the buttons from the frontside. The man behind him started opening them while both of them watched, the brunet’s slow breath landing on Eunhyuk’s neck and the strong fingers working like magic. As the hands traveled down the buttons, his thin lips came in contact with the skin of the blond’s neck where he started with little kisses._

  
_“So do you”, the blond whispered as he tilted his head to give better access. His eyes were glued on the lips and his own skin, and he could feel his body getting hotter by every touch._

  
_He didn’t even notice when the brunet had gotten all of the buttons open, and how he had then slid the garment off his shoulders, revealing the blond’s pale, flawless skin. He felt a wet tongue on his neck and the same lips again, making those slight kissing sounds that reached his sensitive ears while shivers went down his spine. He was dizzy, very much turned on by the new situation, and he was dying to just turn around and kiss the other back. But he was put under a spell of some sort, and he couldn't move. Eunhyuk was too mesmerized. When the whole upper clothing fell on the ground, he felt slight embarrassment because of his reflection, and just as he made up his mind and was about to turn his head properly and ask Donghae to kiss him, he heard a nasty, distant ringing sound, interrupting the flow of the moment._

  
_No!_

  
_The image started fading away and soon the warmth was gone too._

  
   His eyes fluttered as he woke up. The ringing sound just got louder and louder, and although he wanted to just continue sleeping, he couldn’t before it would be silenced.

  
   “Fucking piece of.. turn that thing off!”, he pitifully groaned as he threw his hand over his head. The blond heard some shifting followed my stumbling, and a click which then eliminated the noise. Donghae looked at the clock as he rubbed his eyes, whining as he realized they had probably slept for a good two hours. He had forgotten to turn of the alarm when they had gone to sleep.

  
   “Sorry”, he mumbled as he went back to roll himself in his covers. He fell back asleep quickly, but to Eunhyuk it wasn’t that simple. He couldn’t calm down from the dream he had seen. His forehead was covered in cold sweat and he could feel the familiar tremble of being aroused. Only now he also noticed the pressure of the blanket on top of his crotch.

  
_Shit._

  
   He wasn’t supposed to have dreams like that, not to even mention the feelings that followed, was he?

  
   He removed his hand from his head and smashed his palm down on the mattress, then staring at the ceiling. He was awfully tired but yet so awake. Trying to not think just fed his imagination further. He couldn’t get rid of the thoughts that continued from the situation where the dream had gotten interrupted. He thought if he should just go and quickly take care of it.

  
   Should he?

  
   He stole a glance at the sleeping man on the bed next to him. Donghae had already fallen asleep, so Eunhyuk decided to go. It wouldn’t do any harm, right?

  
   The next thing he knew was him throwing away the cover and sitting up. The blond saw the slight bulge in his underwear and he bit his lip, feeling the thrill of it twist his mind.

  
   The blond relocated himself in the small bathroom, locked the door and leaned his back on the wall. Not wasting any time, Eunhyuk pulled his underwear down and brought his hand carefully to his private parts, starting off with grabbing the whole length and softly massaging the tip. Exhaling as silently as he could, he closed his eyes and finally gave his brain permission to continue feasting with that image.

  
   He was too needy, way too needy to think straight. With the brunet’s image in his mind and the sensual voice of his saying his name, he lost himself to it. Eventually Eunhyuk gave into the temptation completely. After he was fully erect he started jerking himself off with no shame, the other’s name escaping his lips in low whispers and whines. Donghae was a heavy sleeper so he wouldn’t wake up too easily, but just to be sure Eunhyuk controlled himself. He couldn’t be too loud either.

  
   “Fucking.. Shit..”  

  
   Soon the only coherent words he could mutter were curses of frustration. Without noticing it himself he started thrusting forwards along to the pumping rhythm, getting more of the friction and the stimulation of thrusting into something. Or someone, to be exact. It didn’t really matter, as long has he had something moving up and down his length. At the same time he could imagine fucking someone else, as well as being fucked. He didn’t know which was better, but it wasn’t like he really cared.

  
   The action of his hand came automatically, and way too soon even to his own liking he reached the peak. The built up tension of almost every muscle in his body released all at once. When he came, he whispered Donghae’s name for one last time as he allowed the white stickiness to coat his thin fingers. It was a quick job well done.

  
   As he was coming down from his high he opened his eyes to see the result. Now that it had been done and his mind was back in the real world, he felt more ashamed than he had felt when he had woken up. The clouds in his mind started to fade away, and the bothering images of Donghae and his shirtless upper body disappeared now that he had gotten his satisfactory release.

  
   After a short while of steadying his breath the blond started cleaning up the mess, checking the floor twice so that no stains would be left on it. Not like it really mattered since Donghae had all kinds of dirt stains everywhere, but still. Eunhyuk was a clean person.

  
   When he went back to the bedroom he pulled his blanket all the way up in his reddened ears and flushed cheeks before he let himself drift away again.

  
\--

  
   The next morning, that was more like the afternoon, the blond woke up to the delicious smell of food. Traveling all the way to the bedroom from the kitchen, he could smell something home cooked. Was Donghae actually cooking, or had he perhaps just ordered takeaway?

  
   Eunhyuk took his time waking up properly, checking the clock and finding himself a pair of sweatpants that Donghae had lent for him. He felt satisfied, but he couldn’t deny the tinge of embarrassment of his early morning activities. After he had made sure he had no surprising hard ons left, he put on some random thick socks he found and tumbled to the living room to see where the smell came from.

  
   “Good morning.” The brunet said to him, smiling and greeting him with the sweet words Eunhyuk usually heard from his servant robots. The pleased blond smiled back since Donghae was indeed cooking something on a frying pan, and that alone was yet another positive thing to be happy about. Proper food!

  
   Before Eunhyuk could ask any questions about why, Donghae was already explaining it to him.

  
   “I got tired of fast food. We didn’t eat properly yesterday, and I’m starving, so I went to the market to pick up a paper today and decided to cook something as well. You should probably read the paper”, he said and pointed at the table which had been cleaned of all the extra robot parts. Donghae had brought out all the utensils, plates and two glasses for them, and left the newspaper on the middle. If that wasn’t heartwarming to Eunhyuk, then nothing was.

  
   The blond, still being tired as hell, just nodded and walked to the table, grabbed the newspaper with him and moved to lay down on the couch. He looked at the headlines and couldn’t help but to be surprised. Written in cat sized letters was: “Malfunction, bug, virus, hacking? - Can we trust androids after all?” as today’s biggest headline. Who would’ve guessed.

  
   “Wow”, was the only word that Eunhyuk could let out. “Did you read it thoroughly already?”, he asked from Donghae while turning a page. He saw a photo of the street where the robots had been shot. The view brought back the memories, causing Eunhyuk to chuckle.

  
   “Five times. I tried to find stuff that could be linked to us, but couldn’t find any, luckily. Tell me if you can find something”, the brunet commented as he went back to his cooking. “But don’t underline anything or take notes. Don’t want any more evidence in my house.”

  
   Eunhyuk hummed in understanding. He proceeded to read the article many times after that.

  
   When the brunet was done with the food they sat down to eat. Together, around a real table and on proper chairs. Donghae had cleaned up too.

  
   “Are we celebrating or what?” Asked Eunhyuk. He looked at the delicious wok Donghae had made, his tongue almost watering at the sight and smell.

  
   “Our success perhaps?”, the brunet asked and smiled. He used chopsticks to share it on their two plates and sat down on his seat. Eunhyuk thanked him and started munching on his first bite of food.

  
   He loved it. The food was so simple and yet so tasty. Home cooked and fresh, definitely beating the trash they had eaten in the past days.

  
   “Just so you know”; Donghae started talking all of a sudden, “I’m in with your plan. What’s our next move?” The brunet thought that maybe it wasn’t such a idea after all, and that he should probably start supporting Eunhyuk with it now that he had gotten himself involved. The blond was happy to hear those news.

  
   Eunhyuk was very happy to hear it. “Not sure. We’ll wait, maybe go out and try to overhear conversations about the topic. People will start questioning Gijae now”, he explained. “They need some time to think about it, and what this might mean.”

  
   “And then?” Donghae asked as he swallowed his fourth bite.

  
   “When the time’s right, we’ll strike again. Show them that it won’t stop here. Then, maybe one of us could start talking to the people here and get them to support the idea of a revolution. Spread the word, you know”, suggested the blond, doing all kinds of motions with his chopsticks as he spoke.

  
   “Alright”, Donghae agreed, “but you’ll do the talking.”

  
   “No, you will. You are the representative of the poor”, Eunhyuk said without thinking, earning a glance from Donghae. “Sorry, I mean.. You know..”

  
   “Yeah, yeah..”, although he sent a glare at the other, Donghae understood. It was better that he contacted the people of his kind instead of Eunhyuk, but that didn’t mean he had to do it alone.

   “At some point you need to come out as well though”, he told the other man sitting across him. “You are the representative of the royal family, who will go against his own uncle.” He was not liking the idea of convincing people alone. Maybe it could be as easy as Eunhyuk made it seem, but the brunet still thought he wasn’t that good of a speaker himself. It takes two to tango, right?

  
   “Sure thing”, Eunhyuk could only say to reassure.

  
   Together they continued to finish their food in a comfortable silence as Bada sat in the corner, left in a sleep mode to charge. The dog was connected to a bunch of electric cords that came from the wall. The brunet had said that it was measuring the possible electrical activity nearby their area, some kind of changes in voltages and so forth, and that Bada would start beeping loudly if a guard android happened to walk by. Donghae could always keep an eye out on intruders that way. Eunhyuk thought it was very clever. He had started to understand the importance of Bada in Donghae’s life, and he could not understand why his uncle had ordered all of the robots like Bada to be killed.

  
\--

  
   After lunch they decided to go out. The apartment was getting too stuffy with the warmth of the stove and the smell of the food, practically forcing them out to the colder air outside when they had stuffed their stomachs full. You couldn’t call the air outside fresh either though, having all kinds of impurities and dust in it, but at least it had a refreshing effect if you happened to find a place where the ventilation was good.

  
   Donghae had told Eunhyuk about a place which he would love to show to the blond. He wanted to bring Eunhyuk to the spot he liked to visit often and just relax, a place with an amazing view that would calm him down whenever he felt stressed. Along the way they talked about Donghae’s usual routines, such as how he rarely went to the grocery stores and how he almost daily visited the sub floors.

  
   “You said you make a lot of visits to the waste areas, but you haven’t been there ever since you found me”, the blond pointed out. “Do you not have to do it or is it just a voluntary thing?”, he asked, being genuinely interested. When he himself had ended up there it had been unintentional, and he hadn’t seen a lot before passing out and getting injured. But now that he had the chance he’d like to go again. After hearing Donghae’s stories he wanted to see it and know what the reality below level 1 was. His uncle had never told him, the old man kept all the nasty secrets to himself so he could deny their existence. Eunhyuk thought that maybe he could even get rid of his irrational fears too. He was still slightly jumpy from the attack. His wound from earlier was a bit achy although partly healed already, but it still kept the ugly memories coming back.

  
   “Yeah, all voluntary.”

  
   And what if Donghae could even show him the boiler rooms? He would have proof of something he only thought as a myth, almost like an urban legend. No one was allowed to go there except robots. The borders were so strict that no one had been there in years, and as a person who longed for freedom, who wanted to break the rules just for the sake of it, Eunhyuk really wanted to go there. The brunet was amused by the question.

  
   “But as you know, I’ve been kind of busy”, he started with a smile, meaning that he had indeed spent all of his time with Eunhyuk, “..but yeah, I’ve pretty much covered all of the areas from 0 to 25 just because no one else dares to and I can get money by selling those parts. I just thought it wasn’t necessary while you are here”, he said.

  
   Eunhyuk nodded at that and returned the soft smile. To a certain level Donghae was secretly proud of what he had achieved. What many thought as impossible, he had just gone and did it, and he could make a living out of it. And what if he had never gone out there? What if he had never found Eunhyuk?

  
   “Could I.. accompany you some time?” The blond asked. Much to the other’s surprise he was shy about it, and Donghae wasn’t expecting to hear it, but nevertheless the latter was pleased with the idea when he visioned it in his head.

   “Why not.” A company would always be appreciated. He had thought that maybe his long hours being absent could be partly dangerous to his visitor and that he could ditch going to the dumps for a while, but it seemed that Eunhyuk had noticed it.

  
\--

  
   The walk to Donghae’s favourite secret place wasn’t long. When they had traveled up a few staircases and tunnels, one pair of ladders and jumped over a pipe, they reached their destination. Eunhyuk almost whined about the journey taking its toll on his stomach, but when he saw the view he fell quiet.

  
   “This is it”, said Donghae and sat down.

  
   They were on a shabby, slippery roof where they could see down to the plaza that was nearby a tunnel that lead to the area of Donghae’s house. Daylight didn’t reach the brunet’s house, but here on the other side of it could be seen even from the bottom. All of the different houses and sheds were built on the steep edges, changing to a bit finer looking ones at the top. It was kind of like they would be inside a volcano or a cave, and it gave Eunhyuk a nice feeling about the atmosphere. The people living down on level 1 were all so genuine. If they didn’t trash the streets and live in cardboard boxes, at least they did something to survive. It wasn’t a place for the weak.

  
   Donghae looked up at the angular hole at the other end of the tube like structure. He saw the sky through it and smiled to the faint sunshine that traveled down the patched roofs and broken windows. On top, in the small piece of sky he noticed some bright clouds passing by which took away the sunlight for brief moments. Eunhyuk was mesmerized by the view; all the different colours and styles of bricks, roofs and the sunlight reflecting from the walls, and windows that sent the beams of light even lower so that it zigzagged down to the very bottom. He was glad to be seeing the place as it’s barren self. It was obvious that this area wasn’t built to follow a certain style of architecture. It had been built over years, styles of the buildings matching the year they had been built in. The upper you went you could see the wealthier houses. But it was still cozy, and fit Donghae’s personality perfectly.

  
   Today the whole area further down was packed and filled with people. Eunhyuk thought about living there, how it had affected Donghae and make him what he was today. He wasn’t really scared anymore or judging. Just like the sunlight, his doubts disappeared when the clouds covered the patch of sky again.

  
   “I come here when I just want to relax. Sit down”, the brunet gently instructed Eunhyuk who was still standing. There were no fences on the roof and the surface was slippery, so the blond took a while until he managed to sit next to Donghae. He didn’t want to slip and fall.

  
   Together they sat in silence, staring at the view and not thinking anything particular.

  
   Eunhyuk decided that he really liked it there. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to survive on his own based on the last week, but at least when he was with Donghae he would feel safe and not lose hope. He tried to think of a reward to give back to the brunet, but he failed to make up anything sensible. Donghae could pretty much build himself all of the small stuff he needed, and on top of money the only thing he could really make use of was a new piping system or a big household cleaning. And Eunhyuk just couldn’t buy him a bathtub or a new water pipe system or a shower, or give out large sums of his money for renovation. That would be suspicious from his uncle’s point of view.

  
   He felt sad that he couldn’t think of anything better. Maybe, if he succeeded in his big plan, he could reward Donghae so that he could find a new place on a higher level and go on with his life there. Would he forget Eunhyuk after they were done, or would he like to keep meeting the blond? Would the brunet still live in his shabby house or would the both of them spend the rest of their lives in prison?

  
   Scared of getting separated before he could give the brunet at least something important, he suddenly thought of a fact to tell. He had only one trick up his sleeve left.

  
   “Donghae.. I think I have to tell you something”, he shyly started with the other’s name. The mentioned man turned his head and looked at him, clearly with a relaxed attitude. Eunhyuk instead was tensed.

  
   “Mm?” Donghae didn’t want to break the comfortable silence, but waited for the other to continue. He saw how the blond haired man looked away and took a big breath. He sensed he was about to hear something worth listening.

  
   “I think you should know that Eunhyuk..”, mumbled the blond after a long pause, “..isn’t my real name.”

  
   Donghae stared at him, but he didn’t seem angered at all like Eunhyuk had thought. Just a tiny bit disappointed and surprised.

  
   “Oh?”

  
   Suddenly Eunhyuk didn’t know what to say anymore. He froze and got stuck in his own thoughts while meeting the deep brown orbs of the other. He hadn’t told his real name to anyone in years, so why now? Why did he think Donghae deserved to hear it, of all people?

  
   “What is it, then?”, asked the brunet, saving Eunhyuk from his awkward loss of words. He was chill and kind, very patient with the man next to him. Donghae felt a bit offended that he had been lied to, but he guessed maybe the other had a good reason for it. And, well, it wasn’t like they had known each other for years. He respected the other’s decision to tell him the truth in the first place.

  
   There was a long pause before the blond could say it.

  
   “Hyukjae”, answered the blond finally, shy and unsure.

  
   As the new information registered in Donghae’s brain, the blond felt something cold on his cheek. He jerked his gaze away from the brunet and looked up to their surroundings, then seeing the white flakes calmly dancing their way down from the sky. When the first ones landed on the roof, they melted straight away because of the warmth. Had he not noticed it was already below freezing point?

  
   It was snowing for the first time in four years. Donghae was shocked to see it too, but instead of a wow the only word that came out from his mouth was the other’s name.

  
   “Hyukjae”, he tried it.

  
   And the blond blushed. He felt like a big ton of weight was lifted off from his shoulders. Only people from his family, like his parents and sister used to call him that.

  
   “Eunhyuk to the public, but Hyukjae in reality”, he explained. “My uncle despises it, so he invented me a new one when my parents went missing and he took me under his wing. Kind of like.. creating himself a new child because he never had any.”

  
   Hyukjae felt the disgust he had towards his uncle increase, and didn’t notice the sad smile on his own face. How melodramatic, he was.

   “Not like I would want to have him call me by that though. He has probably forgotten it, luckily”, he commented. Only now he was feeling the coldness of the air spread to his fingers. He buried them deep into the pockets of his warm jacket, which was actually Donghae’s and smelled like the the brown haired man. Hyukjae nuzzled his face to the collar.

  
   “Why me?”

  
   “What?”

  
   “Why tell me, of all people?” Donghae asked.

  
   Trick question.

  
   “I want you to use it”, the blond mumbled, even more silent than before, “I trust you.” He was too shy to look at the other’s eyes, but Donghae was perfectly alright. Even more than alright.

  
   “Well”, said the mentioned man as he shifted on his place, “I like it. I don’t have a secret name.. but if there’s anything you want to know or me to do, just ask”, he gave the other as an option. He was thankful for Hyukjae for opening up and telling him about things like these. You couldn’t call them close, but somehow sharing that was just so.. right.

  
   “Anything?”

  
   “Yeah, anything”, promised Donghae.

  
   _Kiss me_ , thought Hyukjae as the very first thing came into his mind. He didn’t know why, but the haunting flashbacks of the sweet Donghae in his dream had made a comeback.

  
   “I’ll ask when I have something in my mind.. but right now.. Can we go back? I’m getting cold.” Hyukjae whined on purpose, not oblivious to the way it might have sounded to the other’s ears. Given the situation of two people sitting together, sharing shy looks and the other one complaining about cold.. where will that usually lead to?

  
   Now, that was flirting for Donghae. Or, maybe his mind only wanted to think it as that. He grinned and didn’t move an inch.

  
   “I kind of like it here though” he said.

  
   “But I’m _cooold_.”

  
   And the next thing Hyukjae knew was some shifting next to him before he sensed the warmth in front of his face. He felt their lips press against each other, and that was making his head automatically turn to the right as Donghae’s warm hands gently cupped the sides of his face, rubbing his cold ears. The brunet wiped a melted snowflake away from the cheek with his thumb, and moved his hands to the back of Hyukjae’s neck. The blond’s face flushed. So did Donghae’s. For a split second he had thought his mind could be read with some weird new technology, but that wasn’t possible, right?

  
   When the kiss ended, Hyukjae was left with a sweet taste on his lips. He had answered to the act, which had made Donghae very happy.

  
   “Warm now?”, the brunet asked, still a smirk on his face.

  
   Hyukjae was quick to think of a response.

  
   “Not enough”, he whispered, and their lips found each others’ again. It was addicting. They weren’t drunk this time and they both did it from their own free will. Could’ve Hyukjae really lost his own battle already and started to fall for the weird but still so perfect brunet? It felt so right to be doing it, so sinfully right that he didn’t want to stop.

  
   More snowflakes had started to fall down. The air was definitely below freezing point now, but the kiss kept Hyukjae fairly warm. The moment was beautiful. Just as the contact was getting deeper by instinct, with Donghae asking permission by nibbling on Hyukjae’s upper lip, Bada chirped and interrupted the two. What a horrible robot dog, Donghae thought as he frowned.

  
   “What now?” The both of them asked in unison almost comically, together glaring at the bouncing robot dog behind them. In the past days Hyukjae had come accustomed to the robot’s habit to beep whenever it felt like it, so it was easy for him to relate to Donghae’s frustration. Their moment was interrupted.

  
   When the LED screen eyes turned into a text that said ‘LOW ON BATTERY’, Donghae sighed loudly. At least he knew him and Hyukjae were on the same wavelength with opinions.

   “It hasn’t snowed in years, and now you say we have to go back to recharge you? What have you been doing back at home if not recharging?” Donghae talked to the robot like it could understand. He was just too lazy to move right then. Hyukjae agreed, but stayed quiet as he didn’t know what else to say. The robot didn’t understand anyway, so there was no use talking to it, right?

  
   “Sorry”, apologized Donghae and now turned to look at Hyukjae again.

  
   “It’s okay.. we can.. continue later”, he muttered, not believing what he was saying and surprising even himself. Had he just said that out loud? Donghae stopped when he was about to stand up, his thin lips forming into a grin once again. He had won. Hyukjae hadn’t rejected him or reacted weirdly to his actions, but instead answered and returned the kiss. He had been scared that now Hyukjae would definitely hate him and avoid him at all costs, but to his positive surprise it wasn’t the case.

  
   They would’ve wanted to hold hands, but they weren’t courageous enough to do it just yet.

 

\--

  
   On their way back to the house they were both secretly feeling butterflies in their stomachs. They both had done crazy things in life before, but none of those would compare to their time together.

  
   When they went back down to the plaza at the very bottom, everything halted as an ear deafening bang came out of nowhere. In a flash Donghae turned around to look where it had came from. A patrol of troops was a fair hundred meters away, and people around them had already started screaming and running around in panic.

 

  The whole plaza was in a chaos in a matter of seconds. They were after the pair, or perhaps they had only shouted Eunhyuk’s name only, but either way Donghae’s escape reflexes were faster than Hyukjae’s so he took the lead, grabbed the blond’s hand and started running for his life. Dragging the blond with him, he didn’t dare to look behind. He concentrated on not letting go of Hyukjae.

  
   Both of their heavy steps echoed from the tunnel walls they went through. Huffing breaths and some coughs bounced back from the walls. It was way too cold for running. Donghae guided Hyukjae through many tunnels and passageways. There was a good bunch of guards after them, guns in their hands and endless stamina in their legs. The troops had come for the blonde, and they weren’t friendly at all.

  
_Shit._

  
   The next thing Donghae knew was that the warmth in his hand disappeared, and that suddenly Hyukjae wasn’t there anymore. He simply just wasn’t there.

  
_No!_

  
   At the very second he wanted to slow down and look back, the only guard left chasing him shot two bullets right next to his feet. He almost lost his balance. After another ten meters Bada came crashing down onto his feet, a huge, ugly hole in its head.

  
   “Bada!” The brunet screamed with instinct leading him. He turned around abruptly and saw the guard and the broken robot between them. He calculated if he could take the broken robot home, but there was no time.

  
   _God fucking damn it_.

  
   To save himself from getting caught he ripped his eyes away from the poor robot and forced his frozen legs to move again. He was trembling from all the running and fear, but his brain told him that he only needed to get away, and then he’d be fine. He had to leave Bada there - the dog was long gone with its head smashed into pieces - but only seeing it hurt Donghae like hell. That he would not forgive. Fucking androids.

  
   “Halt!” The robot tried to shout after him, but Donghae kept going. He couldn’t get caught. He had lost the game already; he had lost Hyukjae and he had lost Bada. The day could have been perfect if they hadn’t just used the crowded places to walk around.

  
   He felt useless as he ran, his mind thinking nothing yet automatically choosing the fastest route he could think of. He tried to shake the guard off in T-turns and different staircases. He was used to running away like this, but he wasn’t used to losing someone who he had grown very attached to within days. In those long seconds he thought about Hyukjae, the times they had spent together, and how freaking many hours of his life had gone to building Bada. He was furious, and that could be heard in his steps as the boots’ heels hit the stone.

  
   After a sharp turn to the left and then right, he arrived to a downwards ladder. He would not get caught, he kept repeating to himself. He smoothly turned around, grabbed the handles and slid down all the way like a firefighter, stopping at the very bottom. Hands full of rust, the brunet looked up, took out his small gun from the inside of his boot and pointed it at the upper part of the ladder while taking three slow steps backwards. When he heard the guard’s steps getting closer, he got ready to shoot.

  
   The man aimed at the spot where the guard would soon show its face.

  
   He succeeded, unlike his counterpart.

 

* * *

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

 

   “Let go of me!”

  
   He felt his arms being grabbed and put behind his back with force. The blond was handcuffed and held in place.

  
   “You are to be taken back to sky reach. Direct orders from Lord Gijae. You have violated the law by imposing as a guard with no real authority.”

  
   “What?!” He could not believe it. After everything he had done to hide himself, they still knew? Did they know about the shootings too, and the building break in? Or what did they mean by it?

  
   “I haven’t done anything of that kind!”, he shouted, putting his life on the line to just save his ass with one last act of innocence. Desperate, the blond did his best to fool the guards. He knew they wouldn’t hurt him because he wasn’t really a fugitive, so he tried to wriggle himself out from their grasp. To his unfortunate luck he was too weak though, and only ended up getting bruised arms from the pitiful try. No one answered him after that.

  
\--

  
   “What makes you think I did all of those things?” Hyukjae asked when he had heard what his uncle accused him of. He was doing a good job hiding his anger as he was sitting on the chair, hands still cuffed behind his back, but it was really difficult to stay calm with the adrenaline rush going on. He looked miserable under the gaze of his uncle. He had been brought straight to him to explain where he had been.

  
   “I was looking for you”, said the man who leaned back on his cushioned chair. “There were sightings of a man who fit your description. And, you ran away, didn’t you?” He said, crossing his legs while looking at Hyukjae like some pitiful prey. The room was almost like an office, but still more like an interrogation room for criminals. Was he considered a criminal now? Hyukjae was scared of what he would have to suffer if Gijae decided to punish him. He had to play it cool, otherwise he’d ruin his chances at living again. He took a deep breath before he opened his mouth to talk.

   “When you sent me there, to the level 2 inspection round..”, he tried out his wordings before he spat out the rest of his words, “we were attacked just because I was wearing your stupid cape."

  
   That didn't draw any reaction from Gijae. “Why didn’t you come home then? Why were you sighted with another man, in a wealthy third level house?”, the man only asked, keeping the same annoying smile plastered on his face.

  
   “Because my stomach got fucking sliced with a sharp piece of steel?”, Hyukjae stated the obvious. Good thing was he didn’t have to fake his annoyance. “And what house? Who says I visited the third level?” The blond really did his best on acting.

  
   His uncle clearly fought against himself as he tried to keep calm.

   “A.. certain man sent us the description.” Gijae was eyeing some of his report papers on his desk, purposefully trying to annoy Hyukjae with his attitude. The blond, whose cheek was now bruised, secretly cursed the family he had visited, especially that weird man who didn’t seem to like anybody. Zhou Mi, was it? Did he seriously report to Gijae’s servants? _Fuck him._

  
   “So? You won’t explain why?” The older man tapped the table a few times with the golden pen between his fingers.

  
   “How would he know it was me? I didn’t go to the third level. I’m not the only one who looks like this.” Hyukjae didn’t know whether to just throw a set of fuck you straight to his uncle’s face or lie and try to talk his way out of it. In the end he guessed he had already done a bit of both. Did Gijae have more facts and tricks up his sleeve that could act as a proof of where the blond had been? What else had this Zhou Mi told him? Hyukjae couldn’t be too bold with his wording.

  
   “Well, you were close though. We got your credit card data from level 2, at the ...red light district”, he said, putting weight on the last words as he read the disgusting sentence out loud from the paper, “which you probably know as the place I very much loathe.”

  
   Now they shared an eye contact. With the mischievous smile on his face, Hyukjae knew. Gijae had talked about it before, how he hated the lower levels and all, but damn did it feel good for the blonde to be doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

  
   “That place is the worst! I will not allow you to visit it ever again. The people living there are all scum!”

  
   Hyukjae stayed silent. He almost, almost started a defending speech about the people who lived there, that it wasn’t their fault they had to stay there, that it was actually Gijae who didn’t give them a chance to a better life, but he couldn’t. The fact how he had seen it all with his own eyes, it bugged him because Gijae was so blind to it. But he would never understand him or listen to him.

  
   Maybe the best way was just to stay quiet and keep acting innocent. Close your ears from the worst. Keep telling him that Hyukjae wasn’t the only blond haired person living in the city and make up an endless list of excuses. He shouldn’t say anything that could give out his earlier whereabouts or Donghae.

  
   “So?” He put on his best poker face to indirectly offend the other.

   “That’s where I ended up. The second level. They beat me up on the first one! Do you get it? When I regained consciousness, I needed to get.. food.” The start of his statement was good, but the ending kind of trailed off.

  
   “From a costume shop”, commented Gijae.

   “Did you eat the fabrics, or did get your pitiful coins by dressing up as a cheap guard then?”, he asked, mocking Hyukjae from head to toe with his gaze.  
  


  
   “What?” Gijae knew about that too!?

   To Hyukjae, what he was hearing right now was the worst thing he could think of. The worst case scenario that could happen - his uncle knowing the truth. His heart was madly pumping in his chest, and he only thanked the gods that he wasn’t connected to some kind of a lie detector machine.

 

   The blond forced a smile on his face. He had to keep acting and just go with it.

   “Yeah, of course”, he chuckled sarcastically, “they paid me lots." Gijae seemed like he wouldn’t take any more of this bullshit, but for some reason he let Hyukjae continue until the end of his story.

   “I needed to survive with cash. You know what happens when a level 1 citizen sees a limitless credit card.” He tried turning his tone into a lower one to seem more convincing. He hated himself for using that stupid card in the first place. Why hadn’t he listened to Donghae?

  
   “Hmph!”

  
   A long silence fell upon the two as Gijae studied his nephew’s dead serious look. Soon after, he made his decision.

   “Well, you won’t be going anywhere now”, the older man smiled in a really mischievous way, making Hyukjae certain that he enjoyed the situation wholeheartedly.

   “Try asking again in a month. We’re done”, the man exclaimed and stood up. He walked to the door and opened it so that the guards could come in and open the handcuffs. Hyukjae felt a bit lighter when his hands were free, but he couldn’t have been any more relieved about the fact that so far only half of the truth had been found out. He had survived at least for now.

  
   But a month… it wouldn’t be too bad, would it?

  
   As he was being taken to his room by the guards, he thought about the situation. His whole life had went past his eyes so quickly, every day passing with almost the same activities as before. Living in the same routines day by day and meeting the restrictions every time he wanted to do something out of the ordinary. With Donghae had happened something new and exciting - the time had stopped.

  
   With Donghae’s image in his mind, his feet  slowed down, making Hyukjae earn a slight push from the android behind him. Although his steps were heavy, nothing could be as heavy as his heart. The only thing he could be glad about was the fact that Gijae didn’t know he did the shooting.

  
   But still, Donghae.. He had lost Donghae.

  
   Back in his lonely floor with his familiar butler robot and some servant androids, he walked the slight stairs up to his bedroom like a zombie and slumped down onto his bed.

  
   A month? Grounded?

  
   For the first time in years, he actually felt like crying out of just sadness. His mind was filled with questions. What had happened to Donghae when he had lost him? What was the brunet doing now? Did they catch him, or had Donghae managed to lose the guard? He would’ve asked Gijae about it, because his uncle knew very well only four guards had come back and brought Hyukjae, but he would never give away Donghae’s presence along a stupid question like that. Maybe Gijae would forget about it. Obviously they could see the chase from the video file recorded into the fifth android’s brain, but maybe if Hyukjae stayed quiet they wouldn’t take a look at the tape. Eventually it would get erased from the memory and replaced by a new recording, unless..

  
   Unless Donghae had managed to shoot the guard. There were two options to that. He’d either attract attention and get everyone after him, or then he could silence the robot for eternity.

  
   Hyukjae prayed that the latter one had become reality.

  
\--

  
   A loud, aggressive thud was heard in Donghae’s apartment. The man was panting, going straight to the fridge to find something to drink, but when he saw it was empty once again he growled and slammed the door shut. He went back to the front door to close it and then proceeded to take off his shoes.

  
   Only then he could go to the object he had dragged into his apartment and slammed down on the floor.

  
   “Now, you little shit”, he started talking, “although you don’t have any pain receptors, I’m going to do the same thing to you as you did to Bada.” He walked around the guard, studying the direct bullet hole between its eyes. The android’s insides were buzzing in a machine-like manner, probably jammed from the destruction of its sensors. They let Donghae know that it was still somewhat alive. Only the eyes were out of order. The motherboard was fine.

  
   Donghae took out his gun again and aimed at the head for the second time. He didn’t wait before shooting it into pieces.

  
   After the android had stopped moving, the brunet sighed. It was sad how his house smelled like Hyukjae, and how all the regret came back right when Donghae paid attention to it. He sat down next to the android and thought about his chances. Hyukjae was taken back, alright. He wouldn’t tell Gijae about Donghae, would he? He wasn’t that idiotic.

  
   And what about Bada, would the robot still be there or had someone already stolen the useless piece of machinery? He would try to go look for the remains of his robot dog, but he couldn’t keep the android in its current state for too long. It was still in an security mode, possibly sending an alarm to its comrades soon.

  
   Donghae bit his lip for a second before he decided to just get on with it. He didn’t waste any more time before getting to work. Mourning wasn’t an option now, he could wallow in self-pity when he was done with the android.

  
   First he fetched his small laptop, some red cords and a black box with lots of different plug holes in it. He turned the android around on its stomach and opened the gray uniform to see the backside lid. Opening the four screws and throwing the lid off somewhere in the corner, he plugged the cords and accessed the motherboard with his own systems. After a while of furious typing, Donghae found the command to stop the emergency signal and shut the whole thing down properly. After that he locked all of the windows, pulled down the curtains and turned off the lights before heading out to look for Bada.

  
\--

  
   During the next days Donghae did nothing in order to get rid of the blankets and mattresses used by Hyukjae. He used all of his time on his little project of building a new companion robot for himself. He put so much effort in it that it seemed like his life depended on it. He took advantage of the basis of Bada’s body, replaced numerous parts in it and fixed the head, changing the insides almost completely. At first it was difficult for him to even touch the injured robot, since it meant so much for Donghae after all the years, but as the anger inside of him subsided, he became motivated to build a new, better one. They had taken Hyukjae away from him with force and locked him up in sky reach, probably. Donghae couldn’t be sure, but he would get him back somehow. All he wanted was revenge, and his first step was to make a new robot.

  
   During the long hours of work, his hatred towards Gijae grew with every part of code he wrote on his laptop. With the thought of finally hacking an android he threw death glares at the stolen guard outfits in the corner of the room, and then back at the lump of robotry in front of him. God, why was his life like that?

  
   He worked for more than three days almost with no sleep. Every time he went to bed he first walked to the garments Hyukjae had been wearing, just to remind himself how good he had smelled. It brought a safe feeling - it was so nice, so sweet and calming, and at the same time expensive and mysterious. Donghae thought that maybe his actions could be a bit creepy, but who the hell cared? He had always lived alone. There was no one to judge him. Not then, not now.

  
   During the nights he was broken. He couldn’t sleep properly because the frustration of doing nothing just ate him from the inside. He had started to believe in Hyukjae’s ideals, in his plan and in his visions of a better city. Of a revolution. And the worst part was that it wouldn’t happen if Hyukjae wasn’t leading it.

  
   After the third day he could see the news headlines talking about Gijae’s nephew who was found and brought back “home” for questioning. By now Donghae could already say Hyukjae wouldn’t call that place a home anymore.

  
   When the brunet had finished reading the article, he brought that paper home and cut off the printed image of Hyukjae on it, putting that next to his bedside table so he could dramatically just stare at it as the nightclub neon signs were lit outside. He thought about different scenarios, if they would soon be caught of the things they had done or if they were to be put in jail at some point. Had Hyukjae told them? Or did Gijae mysteriously just _know_ how they sneaked into the maintenance building? And if that wasn’t already bad enough, what was even worse was the image of Hyukjae being tortured because of it. That image was too much for Donghae to handle, so he groaned out loud.

  
\--

  
   A few more days passed. Slowly the curiosity was numbing Donghae. No answers, no signs of Hyukjae in the news anymore. Would they ever meet each other again? Was Gijae going to keep Hyukjae locked up for the rest of his life, or had he already started to think of punishments? The brunet felt like pulling his hair out just of the thought. That could’ve gotten to the news, right?

  
   He couldn’t feel any more guilty as he felt right then. Why, why had he let go of the other’s hand although that was all he was focusing on?

  
\--

  
   He threw his blanket away in frustration. It was 5AM, and the man hadn’t been able to even close his eyes that night. His brains were just thinking of ways how to build his new robot, how to make use of the android he had basically stolen, and what Hyukjae was doing at the moment. The man felt like going out for a walk, to a place he could see the morning sky and sunrise, but he was too paranoid to leave his apartment for a long period of time.

  
   As the annoyed man sat up on the bed and walked to the living room in his pajamas, he suddenly broke down in the middle of his apartment. He felt absolutely horrible. Being alone, having no one to talk to, and having a goal that was never going to be reached. At least, not by Hyukjae, whose idea it was all along.

  
   He slumped down next to his couch and covered his face in his hands. The brunet felt like he had been glued to the floor, and he could already hear the heavy, low toned organs playing a melancholic melody in the background. He almost started laughing at the image until he remembered he was still alone, and he didn’t own any instruments.

  
   His gaze wandered on the furniture in the room, to the bookshelf filled with everything but books, to the radio which had a self built antenna pointing diagonally upwards, to the empty kitchen corner and to the binary clock until it reached the robots. There was a thought process happening in his brain, on top of the memory about shooting the android.

  
   It had to be him.

  
   Donghae was the one who was free, and who had all the chances in the world right now. Using the android to access the databases, the information of patrol sizes and their working times - he could do that. Go around and convince people to join forces - he could do that. Without Hyukjae he would take the matter into his own hands and do what Hyukjae would’ve done. He wasn’t really blinded by conscience anymore after all the years of doing illicit stuff, and the time he had spent with Hyukjae just fueled the fire.

  
\--

  
   After a week and a half Donghae dared himself to go out more often. He started conversations with people he didn’t know and tried to understand their opinion on the shooting and tried to find out if that had anything to do with Hyukjae in their minds. His goal was to plant the seeds of resistance with his comments. To shop owners, to restaurant waiters and waitresses, all kinds of people between a beggar and a reporter. Even the ladies walking down the red street with their fur jackets and cigarettes.

  
   As Donghae talked to them and learned about their opinions, he wasn’t that scared anymore. He heard the rumors that Eunhyuk had been seen with a random human, which made them think if he was undercover. That had brought up another question in a graffiti hall - was the leader’s nephew perhaps planning on changing sides? To every thought like that Donghae answered a ‘I think so’, just to make them believe in themselves more. He told them the story that didn’t make it to the papers, how violently Hyukjae was taken by four androids after running away, and that rumor spread like wildfire. Even those who were bound by blood were against Gijae.

  
\--

  
   During his time out, Donghae had decided to buy himself a spray can so he could write influencing messages on the worn out brick walls of popular hangout alleys. Texts like ‘ _we must go against Gijae_ ’ and ‘ _dethrone the lord_ ’ appeared one by one, all around the area where Donghae was living. Soon enough, after a day or two, the brunet came across a tag he hadn’t done.

  
   ‘ _Death to the androids_ ’, it said, and he knew he had succeeded in spreading the word. He smiled, and that was the final thing he needed to go on. If Hyukjae wasn’t there to do it, he would do it for him.

  
   On the same day, when he went further out all way to third level he found a big, memorial wall of the warriors who had died in the civil war against robots 80 years ago. Donghae’s eyes traveled through the list of names, forming some of them with his lips until he found the last one. In the heat of the moment he added one extra name under it.

  
   In bloody red he messily sprayed; _ Lee Gijae_ as the last name, and then fled in silence.

  
\--

  
   There was another day when it snowed. That was when Donghae had finished building his new companion, a new kind of dog with better sensors, quieter sound banks and an updated version of an old software. The man didn’t want to call it Bada anymore though, so he had to make up another name for it.

  
   “What is your name.. I wonder”, mumbled the brunet to himself as he was staring at his laptop screen with a flashing vertical line indicating the spot he was going to write the robot’s name. He had to teach it to react.

  
   “How about.. a japanese name for a change? What words do I even know, huh?”

  
   The line was still disappearing and reappearing.

  
   “Tenshi? Umi? Err.. what about.. Yuki? Is Yuki fine?”, he said as he typed the name, testing the sound of it with his tongue. It was short, easy to say, and it reminded him of the day he had spent with Hyukjae under the beautiful snowfall. Yuki meant snow, right?

  
   He caught himself blushing at the thought of it. Yes, Yuki would be perfect.

  
   As he gave the command to give a go to the starting sequence, he put his laptop down and waited.

  
\--

  
   For Hyukjae, nothing had happened within two weeks. He was brought back to the very heart of the city - the five part skyscraper complex where Gijae lived and all of the important stuff was happening. The skyscrapers were scattered around like dots on a dice, the middle one being the most important one and attached to four others by bridge-like structures in the middle. On the outside it was majestic, but on the inside.. for Hyukjae the familiar surroundings were purely just depressing. Had Donghae gotten caught too, or was he just hiding in his apartment with the fear of being caught, doing nothing?

  
   The blond was standing on his cold balcony that night, his bare feet touching the wooden floor covered with a thin layer of white. Some of the falling snowflakes got stuck in his messy, blond hair, and one of them found their way to his eyelashes. Donghae would’ve thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world, but Hyukjae didn’t know that. His mind was too accompanied by his need to figure out a plan on what to do next. Could he handle another two weeks without news and wait for his turn?

  
   He was a very impatient person. As soon as the heavy surveillance on him was over, he would sneak out at once and find the brunet.

  
   When the nightly snowfall was becoming too cold for him, he went back inside and closed the glass door behind him with care. All energy had been drained from his body, mostly emotionally, because he was a wreck who didn’t know what to even feel.

  
   It took him very long to realize that he missed the brunet. Being still in denial of his own feelings, he tried to ignore the warm sensation of butterflies he had felt when he had been with Donghae. It was a hard thing to admit, but they were so different and yet so perfectly balanced when put together, and it was attracting Hyukjae. Only now he noticed the meaning behind Donghae’s caring actions too, such as the tea and the bed arrangements.

  
   He had seen it happen, but why did he have to push it out of his mind right after?

  
   Maybe the reason for his ignorance was really just his unsure self. The only thing he was really scared of was that Donghae was actually just as kind to anyone he met. Why would someone like Donghae even like him, after a scene like their first encounter? He wasn’t some kind of a centric point of the world, it was more like how could anyone ever like him for what he was? A selfish snob who had all handed to them on a silver plate, who put his own needs before others and couldn’t contain the disgust and discomfort of the people from lower classes, and on top of it all instead of keeping quiet said every rude thing out loud just because he didn’t know the term ‘offensive’ at the time?

  
   The blond sighed loudly as he threw himself on his bed again. It sucked to be alone with your thoughts.

 

\--

  
   On the 13th day - and yes, he was counting - Hyukjae woke up to a hassle. He could move around in the top floors where Gijae also lived and worked, and as soon as he decided to go for a little walk and stepped out of the elevator he saw some people running around on the hallways. What was going on?

  
   Deciding to ask his uncle, the blond followed one of the runners and made his way to the last floor, right to the end of the red carpeted hallway and through a heavy door with lots of decorative ornaments on the surface of it.

  
   “Hey, what’s happening?”, he asked from Gijae who was furiously reading and signing some papers. There were other people in the room too, waiting for their turn, and all of them turned to look at Hyukjae as he arrived. They were probably some official workers, considering how much important looking clothing they were wearing.

  
   “We’ve got our second android killing”, answered one of them. He was a young one, seemed a bit foreign to Hyukjae, but from the first glance you could say he was very naive for answering so quickly, about information that was probably meant to be classified.

  
   Hyukjae’s eyes widened, but only slightly. “By who?” He didn’t even have to fake his interest this time. A second attack? “And how?”

  
   “Shot. We don’t yet know who did it.. It was a well planned kill, almost like an assassination..”, the young guy kept going. Hyukjae didn’t complain as he got his answer, but he thought it was awkward. For starters, the guy was probably very new to the scene. Gijae didn’t like the blabbermouth’s actions one bit. He let out a grunt and looked up from his papers, first sending a glare towards the worker and then looking straight into Hyukjae’s eyes.

   “Go to your room, Eunhyuk, and stay there”, he ordered with murderous eyes. Hyukjae almost protested until Gijae spoke again. 

   “You already got your answer. This doesn’t concern you, now does it?”, he lastly said and took out a stamp to press it on a paper.

  
   Thump.

  
   “Tch.” Hyukjae didn’t like the sound. Stamping meant contracts, and contracts meant new rules and stupid operations. He felt like a teenager being bossed around. But he had no choice.

   “Alright then.”

  
   The blond politely excused himself with a slight bow and left the room, hiding his anger once again. He had to behave well in order to keep up the good image of himself. But still, another killing? He needed to know more about it. It couldn’t be Donghae, right? He didn’t seem like the person to do such drastic things alone. Then again, Hyukjae hadn’t experienced how the brunet was like when he was upset. By this point Hyukjae had not received any news of Donghae, so he reasoned the brunet must’ve gotten away, and, like Hyukjae, been very upset about it.

  
   He decided to wait.

  
\--

  
   For the sake of Hyukjae’s mentality, luck was on his side. He didn’t have to wait for too long before hearing the news of a third killing. Soon it became four, five, six, seven.. and on the 20th day the count had risen to twelve. When the third week was over, there were fourteen, so that made two attacks per day. And, within every attack a five member group of them was killed, so.. 70.

  
   70 androids had been shot.

  
   This fellow was a busy one, Hyukjae thought. He was calculating the death count in his head as he was standing on the balcony, studying the neverending smoke that came out from the high chimneys. The snow had melted, but the air was getting colder every day. The wind just lowered the temperature even more.

  
\--

  
   Gijae and his workers believed it to be a gang at first, but when the killings started happening in many different parts of the city, they started to suspect it was an organization. Hyukjae wasn’t allowed to get information or voice out his opinion on it, but he still wrote down everything he managed to hear, proceeding to think about it by himself in privacy. Killing like that was tough work for a person to do alone, but it wasn’t really.. impossible either.

  
   Soon a thought struck him. What if it really was Donghae? That man had nothing but time in his hands, and he knew the city perfectly… but maybe it still wasn’t him, because the attacks were well thought out and timed exactly as the androids were moving in a certain kind of area. That indicated that the killer had information that was only accessed by androids. And Donghae didn’t have that. The killer was also clever enough to not stay in one place only, taking the time and effort to travel around and snipe two patrols per day. Would Donghae be able to do that kind of thing? He doubted it.

  
   The blond looked at the messy numbers on a paper sheet on his desk. He decided that he really, really needed a map and the locations of the attacks. And sleep before he could think more about it.

 

* * *

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

 

   Hyukjae couldn’t believe his luck. When he had ran out of options, he had used his only desperate solution left and asked Gijae if he could help with investigating the killings. The talk afterwards was one of the toughest he had ever been through, but when it was done he got a positive answer.

  
   He was assigned into the team that would go out to investigate the attacks.

  
   _Wow._

  
   The last three days went by just like that. It was almost too good to be true for Hyukjae, who had put his everything into acting like he would want to catch the killer. In reality it wasn’t too hard since he wanted to go out and sneak away to meet Donghae, but he had to be careful and avoid telling too much about his suspicions to the others. He could never mention Donghae’s existence, or convince them of the thought that the killer was only one person.

  
   He used the information he got to make a plan on his own in the secrecy of his room. Did the killer have a pattern? It didn’t seem like it. The times and places were so random, and had both high and low buildings. The attacks could happen in all areas excluding sky reach. Only thing in common was the way they had been shot. They all had the same caliber sniper bullet which violently tore out the insides. The damage to a machine was just as bad as to human flesh. There were two shots per every android, one to the head and one to the chest. Two hits, that’s what Donghae had said before, right?

 

\--

 

   It took some convincing, but soon the blond talked himself a way to join a guard patrol. His plan was to go with them and then sneak out, find the brunet and be back in six hours. What he had said to the team in a meeting was such a good point that they blindly believed in his intelligence.

 

   _“We should send one or two patrols to the waste areas, don’t you think? If the killers are using systematic randomness to choose targets, then now would be the logical time to go to the lower areas for us. Many of the last week’s attacks were on level 3, which tells me that the next ones could happen on the first level or below”, Hyukjae explained. The gazes were on him._

  
   _“That’s true”, said one of the team members after a short while._

 

_Thank god these people were all human, so they understood complicated speech._

 

_“Wait, are you trying to say that although it seems random, it is actually thought out too?” Someone else asked._

  
   _“Only machines are capable of total randomness”, Hyukjae pointed out. “When a human tries to choose things randomly, they don’t realize they still have a systematic way of thinking. They would be more likely to choose a place where they haven’t been in a while, instead of a target right next to their last one.”_

_It took a while for the words to sink in. After that, he received a few nods. Hyukjae thought he should’ve been a private detective. Did these people seriously not realize this?_

  
   _“Unless the androids are killing themselves..”_

  
_“That is out of the question, Sungmin.”_

  
_“Will Eunhyuk be on the team who will go down there then? I don’t want to be the one doing it.”_

  
_“I can do it”, nodded the mentioned blond._

  
_Even the team lead, Siwon, who was watching all of them with a very strict gaze, eventually agreed._

  
\--

  
   When the day finally came and Hyukjae, together with five android guards went out to the third level, he could already notice some differences in the atmosphere. The way the people stared at him like they would want to burn him and eat him was way too eerie for his liking. He didn’t know if it was directed towards him or the androids walking before him. Someone threw insults at them, getting a few others to join their choir, but no one came close.. What was it that had changed? Were they scared, or did they perhaps wait for the killer to shoot them right before their eyes? Did they think guards would now attack everyone who came close, or what?

  
   For a split second Hyukjae regretted that he had left his house. He was alone, had no one to help him with his plan. But he couldn’t back out anymore. Biting the inside of his cheek nervously he kept his jaw high up and continued walking forwards, not batting an eye on the citizens around them. It was weird to see the city from this point of view again. It had been much more nicer to just blend in and not have to worry about being killed by mere gazes.

  
\--

  
   Their team’s aim was to find leads from near the waste areas. To go around it had been Hyukjae’s idea, because he needed to be able to get to there, but he couldn’t bring the whole team with him. The moment everything fell apart in his mind was when their leader suddenly lead them past the gate that brought them to the elevator.

  
   “Hey, hey, hey! We’re not supposed to go lower”, said Hyukjae as they stepped inside and the heavy elevator door behind them closed.

   “Sorry. We’ve got new orders from Siwon”, was all that the android said. It was creepy how every single one of them had personalized looks and voices, but still lacked the common human sense and typical, human way of socializing. These ones were made to act according to their programming, meanwhile androids that normal people could purchase were each carefully built to resemble real humans with a personality. If Hyukjae had felt alone in his room, then it was nothing compared to the feeling of being stuck in a lift with a group of robots.

  
   He felt the sweat gather on the skin of his forehead. The elevator ride was way too slow, and the machine made awful screeching sounds every 4 seconds. Hyukjae had to swallow when he felt the difference in the air pressure change, blocking his ears and muffling his hearing slightly.

  
   When the lift stopped and they got out of it, Hyukjae was welcomed by the horrible stench in the air. He couldn’t leave the group now because he didn’t know how to get away from there. The lower they went, the warmer it got, and he almost felt like taking his new gray cape off. Now he felt nervous.

  
   They were the only ones there. Walking straight through the tunnel which had the number 12 at the start of it, written with big, black, angular numbers. The lights got dimmer as they went deeper. The humid air made Hyukjae feel nauseous, and his breathing quickened when he thought about Donghae. This was where the brunet worked. This environment was his daily life.

   Positive thing was that if there was any truth to the brunet’s words, he wouldn’t be on the 12th area today. At all costs Hyukjae should avoid leading the group over to the direction of chambers 27 and 28, where Donghae had probably already moved on to.

  
   As they reached the big chamber, cave, or whatever the heck you could call it, filled with litter, trash and metal scrap, Hyukjae covered his mouth and held his breath. It was so nasty. To earn a living by swimming in the midst of this? Out of the question. He was a person who liked tidy places. Wouldn’t be a surprise if he’d get some kind of a sickness from there, since his immune system was so used to cleanliness.

  
   “We were supposed to look around the first level. What are we doing here, exactly?”, whispered the blond to the leader robot of the group. He didn’t want his voice to echo.

  
   “Collecting evidence. Siwon sent us an urgent message some time after we left. According to the latest information, today’s first attack already happened.” So, the killer was on the move? Or, killers, as the others liked to believe.

   Hyukjae gathered up his courage to ask more about it. “Where?”

  
   The leader, black haired and made to look very young, took a short while processing. “In the sub zero level, section 9.”

  
   That sounded bad.

  
   “That’s close to us! Why aren’t we going back to base?” Hyukjae couldn’t understand the logic behind it. They were in danger now. This wasn’t what he had planned!

  
   He was stuck in the waste levels with a group of robots, and more than anyone he wanted to get out of there alive for a good reason. The others could be fixed, but he was a human made of flesh and bones, and he wouldn’t survive a hole to the head and chest.

  
   “Quiet!”, whispered one of the other gray suited robots, making everyone stop on their tracks. They could hear faint clattering.

  
   Hyukjae was standing behind them, frozen in his place while he listened as everything went silent. The scared blond counted the seconds in his mind.

  
   _One, two, three.._

  
   Until suddenly he heard a whiz.

  
   One of the guards fell down right in front of him. Before anyone could react, the others were quickly shot down as well, excluding Hyukjae who was not able to move.

  
   Now he was definitely going to be shot. He was going to be killed, he was going to be-

  
   More clattering. Now it wasn’t trying to hide itself anymore, and it was coming closer.

  
   Hyukjae looked at the fallen android bodies in front of him. One shot per chest, obviously aimed for the motherboards. Why was he left alive? Did the killer need a better spot to shoot from?

  
   He heard steps from the metal structures above him, bouncing back from the wall of pipes next to him. He looked up to see a dark figure moving. The blond’s body told itself to just run, but at the same time he was curious enough to stay. As the steps moved to a ladder behind him and came down, Hyukjae turned around and looked in the direction of the sound. His chest felt like it would burst from his rapidly pumping heart.

  
   Wearing a dark green pair of pants and a sleeveless vest, on top of a vertically striped dark green shirt, stepped out a figure from the shadows and walked towards him. Holding a black sniper was a familiar character with bare, tan arms, and whose brown hair was slightly messy and lifted up to expose his forehead. Hyukjae’s shocked face shouted disbelief.

  
   He had been right all along, but he couldn’t believe it.

  
   “Donghae?” He managed to say before the brunet rushed to the other man and tied an arm around him in a hugging motion. With the other hand he was still holding the sniper, making sure it pointed downwards. Hyukjae was so surprised by his appearance that he didn’t know how to react except flinch from the touch.

  
   “Are you.. alright?”, he tried asking.

  
   “I was so mad, Hyukjae. So mad you wouldn’t even believe me”, the brunet murmured as he hugged him even tighter. The blond had his arms stuck under the cape, so he simply couldn’t lift up his arms to hug the other back. Instead he took in a few deep breaths and assured himself that he was safe.

  
   He lowered his head on top of Donghae’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He smelled the gunpowder. The mixture of sweat and Donghae’s own good odor. It felt like home, as stupid as it sounded like.

  
   “I see you changed your mind about the plan, huh..?” The blond smiled shyly as he raised his head and looked around them. His hands were still shaky from the adrenaline, but he was slowly calming down.

   “Yeah..” The brunet finally let go of Hyukjae and let him breathe.

  
   “Did you kill.. all of them?” Asked the blond carefully, not sure how he should approach the subject. Donghae seemed a bit out of his mind.

 

   “What? Oh, yes, I did..” If Donghae was honest, he wasn’t too proud of what he had done.

  
   “I’m amazed..”, mumbled the blond.

  
   “I have a freaking reputation now, would you believe it”, chuckled the brunet, making an attempt at joking.

   Hyukjae’s face fell. “But that’s not a good thing..", he whispered. He was worried that Donghae had gone overboard. The brunet had all of the government’s troops after him.

  
   Donghae gave him a sad smile. “But it is”, he corrected, “well, not in every way, but it has it’s perks. I’ve spoken to many people. They are supporting me.”

  
   This was new. All the time he had wasted on worrying if Donghae would do anything.. he was proved wrong. Now that they were together again, they could exchange their information and figure out a way how to continue. From Hyukjae’s plan to Donghae’s plan, it had become both of their plan.

 

   “We should talk elsewhere before you go back”, the brunet suggested.

  
\--

  
   “So, why are you here?”, asked the brunet as the first thing when they had sat down on a ledge, a good hundred metres from the spot where the androids were left.

  
   “I was assigned to one of the teams investigating the attacks. Oh, and, Gijae doesn’t know about the truth. At least not yet. He was angry though and kept me grounded for a month.”

  
   “That sucks. How long will you have now?” Donghae felt slightly saddened by the fact that Hyukjae couldn’t stay, but at least he was here.

  
   “Won’t be for too long. I have six hours until I have to go back, but now though.. I don’t know how they’ll react when I go back with a dead squad”, he could only laugh about it. His life had been turned upside down, and there wasn’t any good reason to go back anymore. “My initial plan was to come to level 1 with the guards and escape so I could get to your house, but suddenly they decided to come here. But.. Things changed. Anyway, how did _you_ find me?”

  
   Donghae had known to expect Hyukjae demand an explanation. He scratched his head before he told him the whole thing.

   “On the day when they found us.. four androids went after you, right?”, he started and Hyukjae nodded at him. “The fifth android came after me, and I shot it. After that I brought it home and did some tricks to access the database. I saw all the information who would be where and when. I saw your name there, followed your group here and.. Yeah.”

  
   Hyukjae thought it was really clever, but he didn’t know how to show it. It was slightly awkward to be happy about such a thing.

   “Well that’s.. cool. Very useful", he awkwardly stated as he smiled, and it was contagious. The atmosphere between them became lighter. “That’s a good start for what we are about to do next. I happen to know a good place where to put those skills into use." It wasn’t a flirtatious conversation, but Hyukjae used the same kind of voice on purpose.

   Donghae was all ears. “Where do we go?”, he asked.

  
   “I go back and sneak out tomorrow. That’s my last chance, I can’t go back after it. Then we go to the android control unit”, the blond suggested.

   Donghae thought about it, but disagreed. “He won’t let you out after that I think”, he mumbled as he pointed at the androids.

 

   Well, he was on the right track. Hyukjae had to rethink for a while.

   “Well.. er..”

  
   “What would you say if.. you just decided to come with me now?”, Donghae tried asking. That would probably be the best option right now. The brunet was right, there was no sense of going back when he thought about it.

  
   “I.. could.”

  
   After another share of smiles and a hug, together they left the five androids spread out at the tunnel entrance.

  
\--

  
   “Didn’t I promise I would show you the waste areas?”

  
   “You did.”

  
   “Well, how was it?” Donghae could almost sense the response he’d get.

   “So far?” Asked Hyukjae before he continued on, “Horrible. The smell is awful, the air is humid and I feel dirty just by walking here. I want to take a bath.”

  
   Donghae laughed at that. “That’s me twenty-four-seven.”

  
\--

  
   Back at Donghae’s place, the pair was welcomed by happy, but obviously pre-recorded woof sounds behind the door. That was the first time Hyukjae met Yuki.

  
   “Wow.. what..”, he said unsurely as the smaller robot dog circled around his feet, “but this is not..”

  
   “Bada?”, asked Donghae as he closed the door when they got inside. “Bada was shot, unfortunately, but I built a new one. The name is Yuki.”

  
   “Yuki? Like, snow? Why?” Hyukjae’s genuine, curious gaze made it seem like Donghae suddenly had two puppies in his house. The blond’s usually sharp eyes were adorable when he was like that. Instead of answering, the brunet just smiled.

  
\--

  
   Back at sky reach, when the six hours had passed and all of the other groups arrived to their base where their team lead Siwon was waiting, a heated discussion was happening. They had found out about today’s attacks, and discovered that Eunhyuk was present in the latter one. But his body wasn’t anywhere to be found. Gijae didn’t like it. Had Hyukjae escaped again, or was he really injured and kidnapped by the attacker?

  
   No one knew.

  
   No one knew until a certain someone busted right through the doors. The guy was panting, and everyone in the room turned to look at him.

  
   “May I speak, sir? It’s about Eunhyuk”, the poor worker asked, waiting for permission. Gijae nodded silently.

  
   “We think he has escaped”, he started. Now everyone was curious. “After all the evidence we have gathered, we found out that he broke in the maintenance building last month.”

  
   “ _What!?_ ”

  
   “And.. and he also stole two uniforms and guns, which match with the bullets that were found in the first shooting.”

  
   Gijae saw red.

  
\--

  
   They should’ve gone to sleep.

  
   They should’ve, but instead Donghae found himself eagerly kissing the other man’s neck as the two of them were sprawled out on the mattress on the floor, next to Donghae’s actual bed, after they had decided to sleep together that night. It didn’t really go according to plan, because suddenly they were subtly inching closer to each other, so close that Donghae could give Hyukjae’s smooth skin the first gentle kiss of that night. It was a test, a dare for himself, and when the blond actually didn’t stop him or say anything, Donghae took that as a permission granted and continued.

  
   “When do we have to wake up tomorrow again?”, mumbled Hyukjae who was hiding his slight shyness in amusement. He was very ticklish and couldn’t help the reflex of trying to escape when Donghae’s lips reached the base of his ear.

   “I have something planned at 2PM”, answered the brunet as the kisses traveled back down to Hyukjae’s shoulder. The blond was once again wearing Donghae’s clothes, and the owner of them decided that right now Hyukjae would be better without them. Before sliding his hand on the other’s stomach under the fabric and starting to push it upwards, he quickly stopped for a second to ask if this was okay.

   Hyukjae smiled and nodded. “Only if you take off yours first.” He liked the atmosphere, it was so easy for him to just go along with Donghae’s smooth nature.

  
   When Donghae did as he was told, Hyukjae cursed in his mind since the lights were already off and he couldn’t see the other’s sculpted body like he would’ve wanted to. The blond reached out an arm to touch him, feeling the shape of faint abdominal muscles with his slender fingers.

   “Do you work out often?”, he asked, a smile stuck on his face. He was so happy.

  
   “I try to. Every now and then I happen to get chased so I have to keep myself in shape.”

  
   Donghae’s hungry eyes were already becoming used to the dark, so he could trace out the outlines of Hyukjae’s face. He proceeded to take off the other’s shirt, throwing it somewhere on the side to be picked up later. He then climbed over the blond, leaned down and kissed Hyukjae on the mouth. The taste was perfect, twisting his insides in a good way.

  
   While the blond slid his hands on the sides of Donghae and next brought them to the brunet’s back to feel the smooth skin, his fingers found something that didn’t belong there. When he got his chance to breathe again, in the middle of kisses he asked “What’s this?”, while gently testing the different kind of texture.

  
   “A scar.” Donghae was very absent minded about it, his all senses only concentrating on Hyukjae, but nevertheless answered, “Many years ago I got into a stupid street fight with some guy with a knife.”

  
   “Did you win?”

  
   “Eventually.”

  
   There was a break during which the both of them shared a meaningful eye contact. Then Hyukjae took the initiative to cup Donghae’s face and kiss him again. The latter’s crotch was unmistakably rubbing against his groin, and when that act had been going on for long enough to frustrate Hyukjae, the blond one let out a slight whine. Getting turned on just by the mere thought of being like this with the other man was clearly a sign of his risen level of need.

  
   Donghae proceeded to use the upper hand and went on to press his lips under the blond’s jaw, to a spot that he didn’t know was very sensitive for Hyukjae. “But now you have one too”, he mumbled, liking the way Hyukjae let out a small sigh as the brunet's kisses traveled lower.

   “What?” Asked Hyukjae who was already getting lost in his blurry mind. What were they talking about again?

   “A scar”, repeated the brunet and looked down to see the condition of Hyukjae’s stomach. In the dark it wasn’t clear enough to see though, so he had to make sure it was okay before he could go further. “How is it, by the way?”

  
   “Almost healed. It aches every now and then, but it’s not too bad.”

  
   Donghae kissed the other’s chest and gave the right nipple a tentative lick. He was slowly learning how the other’s body felt like, what where his sweet spots and how would he react when he had found them. Hyukjae sighed.

  
   “Don’t push yourself too much tonight then”, Donghae whispered with all intention to dare the other.

  
   “Pfft… Do you really think you can have a say in that?”

  
   “I’ll tie you up if that’s what you’re asking for”, it was the brunet’s turn to chuckle.

  
   Only the thought of that sent Hyukjae over the edge.

  
   “I would say do whatever the heck you want like I did at the club, but I don’t think I can last that long..” He was being honest, and Donghae chuckled when he understood what the blond meant. He was in the same situation unfortunately, and with Hyukjae’s not surprising hard on against his crotch he was equally eager to just get to the point.

  
   He chose to stay quiet for a while and start making out again, bringing his mouth back up to the plump lips that fit so perfectly together with his own, thin ones. At the same time Hyukjae brought his hands to Donghae’s soft sweatpants to slide them down, exposing his underwear and the very obvious erection inside them. Donghae felt the rush of excitement inside of him and eagerly did the same to Hyukjae who helped him by lifting up his hips from the mattress, with no shame letting his hips get in contact with the brunet’s crotch first. It felt so good, that little friction. When the pants were off and the two of them were left only in their underwear, Donghae pushed his hips down and started grinding slowly. It just felt so _damn good_.

  
   He groaned silently, yet loud enough for Hyukjae to hear it. In turn the latter closed his eyes and let the other continue doing what he wanted to. He didn’t care for complicated details, he just wanted to get his release. His breath was getting heavier by every second, making it harder to speak properly.

  
   His train of thoughts got interrupted when Donghae spoke again.

   “I don’t have.. any lube tonight.. and we both need to be able to walk tomorrow.. so I’m just going to do something else if it’s okay?” He had little pauses in his speech because he was trying so hard to calm himself down and lessen the eagerness of this dry grinding.

   “What are you planning..?”, the blond managed to ask, tightly keeping his eyes closed as he pushed his hips against the others and followed the swaying movement.

   “I don’t know.. fingers?” Donghae was slightly panting too while studying the beautiful expressions under him.

   “God, yes”, Hyukjae breathed at the words he heard, “everything’s okay right now so just _do it_ ”, he demanded, voice filled with equal need.

  
   It didn’t take too long for Donghae to finally grow impatient, take off the other’s underwear and spread his legs as he was hovering on top of him. Just as he was sliding his hand under the blond’s right thigh and he was about to push it up, he remembered that he didn’t want to cause any damage to the wound on the blond’s stomach.

   He whispered a curse out of it and tried to calm himself down.

   “As much as I enjoy this position, I think we should be the other way around”, he leaned in and whispered to the other’s ear, not being able to hide his grinning of getting to touch Hyukjae however he wanted.

   In response, the latter let out a groan of frustration. He was so sure that Donghae was slowing things down on purpose.

   “Oh come on!” He whined and grabbed the brunet by the shoulders, flipping the two of them over so that he was on top of Donghae. This was much better - the brunet could have better access to Hyukjae’s behind. Not wasting any more time, the muscular man brought his hands to the little curve of Hyukjae’s waist and helped him to continue thrusting against his hardened cock.

  
   Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

  
   The blond’s breath got caught in his throat as he felt fingers mischievously slide between the cheeks of his butt. They massaged the area gently, made the man used to the feeling of someone touching him like this, and unconsciously had the blond spreading his legs a bit more. When one of the fingers had massaged the rim long enough, he felt it push inside, causing a really weird feeling in his stomach.

   “Try to relax”, Donghae gently instructed. His voice was honey to Hyukjae’s ears, and his eyes were studying the latter’s closed ones. He could differentiate the slightly open mouth and the furrowed brows of the blond, and at that moment he could’ve sworn that he had never been so turned on in his life.

  
   He would’ve wanted to compliment Hyukjae, but he couldn’t. Because, as he finally got one of his fingers properly inside, he accidentally brushed over the different kind of texture there, causing the blond to moan right there and then.

  
   Hyukjae asked himself what the hell was he doing, but that doubt was long gone when his body experienced the hot wave of pleasure again. The man forcefully opened his eyes so he could study the other’s gorgeous features.

  
   “I’m so going to take revenge on that”, he threatened the other. Though, with fingers up in his own ass he honestly didn’t even believe his own words, but that didn’t matter.

  
   Donghae got lost in the act of fingering the other’s insides. When Hyukjae decided that it was his turn to do him a favor and get Donghae on the very edge, he let his body lay down on top of the brunet’s and went on to slide his last piece of clothing off. When they were both naked, skins getting in raw contact and being glued to each other with sweat, Hyukjae decided to attack back. He supported his body on his knees as he made room between their hot bodies, and then brought his right hand to grab both of their lengths. Starting with what was more like a double jerk off, he hissed at the feeling of his own hand and Donghae’s manhood rubbing his.

   “Shit”, he cursed, “this is _so good_..”

  
   “I can’t last any longer, Hae..” The blond whispered, not noticing he had unintentionally shortened the other’s name.

  
   “I’m going to.. _oh fuck_..!”

  
   Because of Hyukjae’s tensed muscles, Donghae felt his finger being practically swallowed inside. He tried to give the blond one last wave of pleasure before the man released himself ahead of time, having Donghae coming after him within the following seconds. Hyukjae rode his orgasm off into his own hand. After that he pumped everything out of Donghae too, while sharing a sloppy kiss to keep their minds in the frenzy just for a bit longer.

 

* * *

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

  
  


 

 

 

   The next morning they woke up next to each other.

  
   They smiled, both of them wanting to just stay in bed for a few hours more. Unfortunately they had a job to do, since outside the news stations were all telling the same tale.

  
   They said that Eunhyuk, the nephew of Gijae, had betrayed his uncle and could now be considered a criminal on the run. The old man had thought he would find Hyukjae in a matter of hours after the first broadcast and morning paper announcements. He also thought citizens who saw the news would also support and help him, but boy was he wrong.

  
   Instead, the people admired Hyukjae for what he had done.

  
   When the two of them went out in the afternoon, immediately Hyukjae was recognized. He was wearing his grey cape with black insides on top of an outfit similar to Donghae’s. His blond hair was messily styled up, decorated with a blue feather, and on his torso he was wearing an olive green shirt and dark suspenders. On his legs he had cameo printed, loose pants and boots that went up to his knees. On his neck he had a pair of goggles, and under the cape he was wearing a green vest similar to Donghae’s, who had the same outfit as yesterday. They were more combat styled today, had guns with them in holsters that rested on their hips and a look in their eyes that screamed determination.

  
   They made their way to where the commotion was happening. The two of them received some hoorays from the passersby. A few shouted compliments and requests at the pair. Help us bring the leader down, they begged, and Hyukjae thought not answering would be rude, so he just said ‘I’ll try’ and continued walking. The fact that Donghae was actually known by some as the mysterious android killer, and the fact that Hyukjae had gone against his own uncle while putting his life and career on the line caused the lower class citizens to admire and support them.

  
   Donghae had told Hyukjae that they would hold a speech today. The brunet had taken care of that on the day before yesterday by speaking to someone named Ryeowook who could gather a crowd for them. Originally he had planned to talk alone, tell the citizens about the attacks he had done, but now that Hyukjae was there with him the plan had to be changed.

  
   The excitement bubbled inside Hyukjae as they got nearer to the place. It was perfect, he couldn’t have felt more powerful after their night together, and he didn’t have to wait for any longer to start making his wish true. He would need to improvise their speech, but he believed it wouldn’t be a problem.

  
   On their way to the second level a heavy snowfall started. The snowflakes were mercilessly falling down from the sky, but since the place that looked more like a human built ravine out of buildings and structures was very warm at the bottom, the cold was no problem. The pair of men walked a long distance on foot until they started to notice how much people they had actually attracted.

 

   They were once again recognized at the very moment they stepped on the market square filled with people. There was a small man on a higher platform shouting something to the listeners. When he noticed the pair who attracted all the attention, he exclaimed loudly that they were here. “It seems that we have a visitor today!” It was almost like his enthusiasm couldn’t be contained inside of his small body. “I promised you all that I would bring you the man responsible for the attacks, but along with him we have someone you already know.”

  
   As the pair stepped up the tiny staircase next to the stage, they shook hands with the speaker, Donghae going first and introducing them.

  
   “Hi, Ryeowook”, he greeted, “This is.. Eunhyuk, whose idea this whole thing actually was”, said Donghae, purposefully using the second name that people knew.

   The short man had his eyes open widely, and with a loud voice looked at the blond in surprise. “It’s an honor to meet you”, he told him. They shook hands as well. Ryeowook seemed like a good guy, an ally of some kind.

  
   “And Eunhyuk, this is Ryeowook, my contact, who helped me to spread the word of the revolution. I haven’t been just sitting around while you were gone”, Donghae almost winked as he explained. Hyukjae smiled back.

  
   “I’m so thankful you came, Donghae. The people were starting to get irritated”, the small man whispered before speaking normally again. “But you are just in time, so please feel free to start whenever you guys want! The stage is yours.”

  
   Then it was their turn. Donghae cleared his throat and stepped forwards. People took that as a cue to listen.

  
   “Greetings, everyone. I see you have all waited for me. Thank you all so much”, started the brunet as the crowd quieted down.

  
   “As you may have noticed, we have a surprise guest with us today. I was going to talk about the whole thing, but I think Eunhyuk here knows better. Without further ado I will let him continue from here”, he said, motioning Hyukjae to take a step next to him.

   The blond was slightly nervous of what he was about to do, but after a deep breath he started with a voice that was loud and clear enough for everyone to hear.

   “Hello, citizens. I will try to be brief with this”, he said before clearing his throat.

  
   “So, many of you probably knew already that over a month back I disappeared for a week.. Yeah?”, he asked from the audience, looking for a response that came in nods. “That was on the news. I know there were rumors that I had been seen on level 1 during the following week. It was true, I was injured and found by this man”, he pointed at Donghae now.

   “During the time I was recovering, I lived here and saw the reality that is daily life to you all. That gave me an idea and triggered me to do stuff, like sneaking into the android maintenance building and dressing up as an android officer.” He talked so nonchalantly about it, like nothing would be wrong with it, and that drew out some curious looks from the audience.

   “During that time I did some things that weren’t really in the legal category. Too bad I was eventually caught and brought back to sky reach.”

  
   He held a pause and looked at the people, the snow landing on their shoulders and heads peacefully. It was a magical moment for Hyukjae. He had everyone’s attention, and he felt himself really powerful.

   “Right now I’m here without permission. I’m using the last chance I have to convince you all of listening to my suggestion.”

   
   He took a steady inhale.

   “Let's start with the basics. Fact is, I am responsible for the first android killing”, he told them, getting a few quiet gasps as a response immediately. “And he is the one who did the rest. The robots we all thought as invulnerable, are actually just weak pieces of metal. They can be wounded and killed. I know some of you have the same question as I do - are they really as good as we are made to believe? They are not the answer to protecting us. Am I right when i say that their presence has only caused panic and anxiety? Every single one of you has wanted that to come to an end, right?” Once again he looked at the people, straight into their eyes as he repeated their nod action.

   “I am wearing this grey cape today because I am representing the royal family, but let me make myself clear - I do not agree with Gijae. I will not follow his footsteps. I ask you all to trust me from now onwards, because I say we must start a revolution against him.”

   That earned him little whispers of _yes_ and _finally_.

  
   “Yeah, you heard right. I have been informed about the resistance movement hiding in this city, waiting for a chance to attack. You don’t have to wait any longer. Tomorrow his androids will be nothing, and by 12 o’clock I promise you, they will all be out of order. I have my ways to do that. Tomorrow is the day when you all will have a chance to show your opinion freely.”

  
   He let the words sink in for a while.

  
   “I know this all comes so very quickly, but please join us. We both are in the danger of being arrested. Although we have each other at least until tomorrow, we can’t do this alone. Only together we can win against Gijae. I promise, as his nephew, that we will dethrone him and be free!”

  
   The roars filled their ears.

  
   Donghae was positively surprised about the motivational speech. He didn’t know Hyukjae would be such a good performer. Even he got excited from it, and felt the need to shout along with the crowd. It was probably in his genes - a natural born leader.

  
   “Let’s go”, whispered Hyukjae to the brunet’s ear as he grabbed him by the arm, “we have to keep our promise.” Together they waved to the audience, not like celebrities but more like politicians.

   “Thanks Ryeowook, this was needed”, the blond lastly said as he bid farewell to the small guy.

  
   When they were disappearing into the midst of the people around them, Donghae finally collected up his courage to grab Hyukjae by the hand without anyone paying too much attention.

  
\--

  
   After the speech and a moment of the two of them grabbing slushie drinks along the way, they went back to Donghae’s house to fetch all the necessities. What they needed were guns, bullets, knives just in case, and Donghae’s laptop along with Yuki. Also a thermos bottle, flashlight, tape and a collection of different kinds of wires and cords. Maybe even some snacks too from the back of Donghae’s kitchen cupboards. Everything they’d need for a long lasting night of hacking.

 

   When the trio left the apartment, the robot dog included, Hyukjae took the lead and started taking Donghae to the control unit building.

  
   They hadn’t gotten away from the first level before Hyukjae remembered something.

   “Wait. We still need the actual coffee if we want to stay up all night”, he stated and dragged Donghae to the first coffee shop they came across. Filling the thermos bottle with it and putting it back to the brunet’s backpack, they continued.

  
   Their destination was a tall office-like skyscraper almost right next to the area where Hyukjae lived. Getting to the highest level was almost too easy, but the walking was the opposite. They had to be careful to not be caught since guards were everywhere, most of them unknowing about tomorrow and only concentrating on catching Eunhyuk, who had been added for the wanted list for breaking at least four different laws. The blond didn’t know about that for a fact, but he knew they must’ve been looking for him because he hadn’t come back yesterday.

  
   Before stepping out of a stone cold staircase tunnel that lead to the very surface of the city, he decided to turn his cape over so he wouldn’t be that easy to recognize. The inside was made from smooth black fabric, so that was a distraction good enough for the small ten minute walk they had to do.

  
   The pair didn’t talk too much during the walk as they had to be alerted at all times, but every now and then they stole glances at each other. In the midst of streets with hovering cars, elevated highways, glass fences and the smell of pollution in the freezing air, Hyukjae thought about the moment he could finally confront Gijae. It was bound to happen tomorrow, and he was going to proudly finish it all. Under the many bridge-like passageways Donghae recalled the happenings of last night with Hyukjae, and at that moment he couldn’t have been any more content with his life. He made a promise to give his very best and be useful for once, just so he could be able to stay with Hyukjae and not end up behind bars.

  
   Yuki on the other hand just cheerily walked behind the two, right at Donghae’s feet so it could hide if necessary.

  
\--

  
   Getting inside the building was almost too easy. Just like that, Hyukjae brought his hand to the code machine so he could type his personal code for identification. Donghae felt like they could be caught at any minute, but Hyukjae’s presence and the way he did it like a professional made him feel at ease. Hyukjae noticed Donghae’s nervous eyes.

  
   “It’s ok”, he said while looking at the other reassuringly. “I think by now they know about everything we’ve done.. We just have to stay one step ahead for the next 36 hours”, he told him. His voice was soothing when he took out his card with two big A’s in it, knowing perfectly well it could be traced if the police just knew where to look. Hyukjae was right, they were in trouble already, but they still had the chance to postpone their last judgement. They couldn’t save themselves from the wrath of Gijae anymore, and they only had one chance to attack back. The best Donghae could do right now was just to stay calm and do what he had promised, follow Hyukjae and then hack himself into their systems.

  
   Taking the card that popped out from the locking device and putting it in his pocket, Hyukjae breathed in deeply before the doors slid open. Just as calmly he walked inside, Donghae following him and taking in all the new information he got just by looking at their new surroundings. It was a basic lobby, not that different from any other office building, but the lights were off and there was no one there on the reception desk. Obviously, no one was waiting for people to visit at a time like this. The display screen above the elevator changed numbers every now and then, meaning that someone was using it. Guards probably, Donghae thought, walking around the building during the night.

  
   Shit.

  
   “We have to take the stairs, don’t we?”, asked the brunet with a low whisper. Hyukjae nodded and scanned the room for a minute before telling Donghae to follow him. With Hyukjae’s card it was child’s play, and door after a door they changed rooms before finally reaching the emergency staircase.

   “So, up we go”, said the blond lastly before taking one big inhale of air and starting to climb up the stairs. That in itself wasn’t really child’s play anymore.

  
\--

  
   By the 26th floor they had given up on wearing the capes. Panting, both of the men were almost on the verge of giving up. Although they were quite good in physical activities, no human on earth would survive that kind of a climb without ending up with a heaving chest and sweaty forehead. Donghae’s chest was glistening, and very much distracting Hyukjae.

  
   Luckily Hyukjae was very good in ignoring that and motivating people.

  
   “We can do this”, he said to Donghae. Step after step, sometimes taking leaps of two, they kept going upwards.

   “Don’t even think about stopping, because that’ll make it even more difficult.” It was an effect Donghae didn’t expect the other to have on him. He kept going, although his thighs were crying out of the exercise and his forehead was as wet as the ocean. He had noticed the difference in their bodies and seen how thin Hyukjae’s legs actually were compared to his, but still the saw the determined blond keep going like a real athlete. He couldn’t give up. Either Hyukjae was a good actor, or then he was just secretly the world champion of staircase climbing. No wonder though, they had a lot of stairs in the sky reach, didn’t they?

  
   “If you stop, you won’t want to get up anymore.”

  
   “Yeah, yeah”, mumbled Donghae, wanting nothing more than to just keep his mouth shut and have his mind focused only on the activity.

  
\--

  
   On the 37th floor even Hyukjae’s motivation got sucked down the drain. He let out a loud whine as he dramatically went laying down in front of Donghae, on the flat surface of the floor’s doorway area.

 

   “No, no, no! I can’t do this, fuck it!”, he shouted. Donghae snorted at the sight. He was supposed to be the one who needed motivation!

  
   “Remember what you said”, stated the brunet with a serious voice when he got to the blond, putting Yuki down on the floor for a while.

   “You can’t do that, otherwise you don’t want to continue.” He was supporting his upper body against his knees with his arms, trying to catch his breath and doing everything he could to get as much oxygen in his lungs as he could.

   “I’m just proving that my point was right! Aagh..” Hyukjae whined, feeling his skin get hotter of the blood flow and his face get flushed. He was so exhausted. The blond thought that maybe he had the wrong style of climbing. Why else would Donghae still be standing up?

   “I’m almost thinking about the elevator, Hae..”

  
   The nickname didn’t go unnoticed by the brunet. All in all, the condition in which they were in resembled very closely what they had been in last night, and the usage of that nickname caused flashbacks to fill his brain. He tried to ignore them, the feeling of the soft mattress, the euphoria of just being able to lay down, the amazing feeling of release which was almost like finishing running a marathon…

  
   “No”, he said abruptly, not really knowing if it was meant for Hyukjae or himself. He collected himself quickly and shook his head. The elevator, yeah.

  
   “We’re not going to risk it. We will not take the lift. I’m telling you to get up.” With a lot of difficulties, Donghae fought against his urge to just sit down. Not wanting to lose to the battle, he made himself grab Yuki again, take another step, followed by another, and another, and another.. leaving Hyukjae behind on purpose.

  
   “Don’t leave me here!” the abandoned blond said after the brunet’s retreating back, forcing himself to sit up. The muscles of Donghae’s arms, he was staring at them, how they flexed and how they looked like they could carry a lot of things..

“I hate you, I really do!”

  
   “I love you too!”, came a muffled answer from Donghae who was already out of sight. In many situations the comment would’ve been a joke, but the brunet didn’t even realize the meaning of it before it had escaped his lips. Thank god he was already behind the corner.

  
   The blond froze for a moment when he heard it. Had Donghae meant it, or was it just a not thought out, sarcastic response? Or, was it like a double bluff, like a real confession masked into a fitting comment on purpose? His confused mind distracted him for a while. He felt the mysterious energy piling up and the effects of the short rest giving him a stamina boost.

  
   He suddenly had the strength to stand up and continue.

  
\--

  
   Eventually Donghae had to stop because he didn’t know how high they were supposed to go. Hyukjae didn’t take too long catching him. Together they continued just a few more, and when they finally arrived at their destination floor Hyukjae gave himself a few seconds of a well deserved break. Donghae looked at him while cocking a brow, because he was the one who had carried Yuki all the way up.

  
   He swore in that moment that if they were to ever make it out of there alive, he too would probably take the risk and use the elevator.

  
   Hyukjae let out a cry as he sat down on the floor, using the cold wall as a support to slide his back against it. Donghae in turn grabbed the staircase fence and leaned on it, panting just as heavily as Hyukjae.

  
   “When we get back.. haah.. I’m gonna shower first…”, he murmured, making Hyukjae chuckle ever so slightly.

  
   Why was this thing turning into a joke, he wondered. Not that he’d really mind though, he liked the relaxed side of Donghae.

  
   “So, where do we go next?” The brunet asked, now standing up straight and clearing his throat. Hyukjae dug out his card and pointed at the matte glass door next to him, “There”, and reached out the card for Donghae.

   “Eighty six, four-o-four, one, five, one, zero”, he listed the numbers of his personal identification sequence.

  
   “What?”

  
   “You do it, I’m too tired”, Hyukjae smugly ordered as he closed his eyes and leaned his head back. The cool wall behind him made his aching back feel better.

  
   In the short time Donghae took with walking to the door, he already forgot it.

   “Eighty six, four something.. uhh..” he didn’t want to press any wrong buttons, so he just stared at the display screen, making Hyukjae sigh. The blond repeated the numbers. Donghae followed the command, and then used the card to finally unlock the door like Hyukjae had done before, then proceeding to give the card back to the owner.

   “What does AA stand for?”, he asked out of curiosity. The door made a loud clank as it opened, echoing in the emergency staircase all the way to the bottom.

   “All access”, answered Hyukjae and finally stood up.

   They went inside together. “Should’ve guessed.”

  
\--

  
   They had to walk through an office before getting back to the elevators that went down to the main lobby. Hyukjae’s senses heightened at every step he took, trying to listen if anyone would be in the same area as they were.

  
   Just as they were about to open the third door in that floor, they saw a moving figure in the distance behind glass walls, walking straight into their direction.

   “Hide!”, whispered Hyukjae as he grabbed Donghae by the arm and dragged him into one of the office cubicles. Yuki followed the two without realizing that they should be as silent as dusty skeletons in a tomb. Donghae aggressively picked up the robot and didn’t even think twice before shutting it off by the power button in its neck. The two men hid under a table, rolled some trash cans in front so they couldn’t be seen, and then started waiting. They weren’t in a hurry really, so they took their time before they heard a click at the door. The guard stepped into the empty, dark office and let the door close on its own weight. He started whistling as he walked around the big area, checking the biggest corners with his flashlight that had its dim glow traveling across the ceiling.

  
   Donghae knew androids didn’t whistle. They had to be extra careful now, since the guard was most likely a human, perfectly capable of seeing stuff out of the ordinary that machines usually left unnoticed. So far they had only been killing androids with Hyukjae, but a human.. he couldn’t do that. That was the last straw to earn him a life sentence if he was caught. On top of it all, that person probably had a family, like Donghae had had before being forced to live on a separate area.

  
   It took several minutes for the flashlight disappear and another door to slam shut. Hyukjae gestured Donghae to move only after a few more minutes had passed.

  
\--

  
   Getting past another few doors, they finally reached the control unit. It was a big room located in the middle of the floor, filled with computers that were at least 2 metres high and one metre wide. All of them looking exactly alike, blue lights illuminating from the inside and green on the buttons. The whole room was filled with a continuous humming sound from the machines. Donghae looked at the place like he couldn’t believe it existed. To his child-like nature he let out a small woah as he put Yuki on the floor and pressed the on-button, then proceeding to leave the robot there as he studied the sight in front. Hyukjae was walking in the middle of the grid-like formation, to the very end of the room where a few actual screens were placed.

  
   Donghae followed still in awe, and after him ran Yuki which had already completed its startup tasks.

  
   “This is it”, said Hyukjae proudly. Donghae was a bit suspicious of just how did the blond know about all these things. Was he like a member of a secret service, or just purely and ridiculously lucky in everything he did?

  
   “I have to ask before I go crazy.. How on earth do you know these places?”

  
   “I’ve been here before, too. As the upcoming leader of the city I was taught to remember these places and how everything works”, he explained calmly, sitting down on a chair that he pulled out from under the wide desk ranging from a wall to a wall.

  
   Donghae accepted that as a good enough explanation. He rolled up his sleeves and gave Hyukjae his cape and backpack, then calling for Yuki and sitting down on a chair in front of the main computer screen which was displaying an endless screensaver. He tried pressing the enter key so the floating logo on a black background would disappear and be replaced by gray lines of just pure text. Donghae studied it just by looking at the code. Carefully he tried typing a few commands so he could get exact specifications - he had to know about the system before even thinking about the right way to hack.

   “This might take a while”, he warned the other, but nevertheless got into work.

 

* * *

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

 

 

   Hyukjae got the job of keeping watch at the door. Yuki was needed for accessing the computers. It was put into a mode in which it looked like it had been shut down, but actually did respond to movements and noises if there were any. As the brunet learned which system it was and which code should be used, Hyukjae learned about another trait in Donghae that he kind of liked.

  
   The man was talking to himself, totally lost in his work and bringing out the intelligent side of him that Hyukjae admired.

  
   The blond didn’t even notice that he had left staring at the brunet for the whole time.

  
   When they had arrived, it had been almost 10PM. When they had reached the control unit itself, it had been 11PM. Now the clock was already ticking at 3AM, and that’s when Hyukjae decided to bring out the coffee. He stood up from the grating floor made of steel and walked over to the backpack which had been sitting next to Donghae since the brunet had all of his necessary stuff in there. Hyukjae reached his arm inside to grab the thermos bottle and took it out, sitting on the chair next to Donghae and pouring warm coffee in the tiny cup that worked as the bottle’s cap. Offering it to the brunet, he put it next to the keyboard for Donghae to pick up.

   “We have nine hours", the blond stated, "If we don’t get caught, that is." He threw his legs on the table, boot heels clashing with the plastic surface. Donghae turned his head into his direction and took the coffee, tasting it first.

   "Agh," he scrunched up his nose. "I hate coffee."

   Yet he took another sip. He had to, for the sake of keeping himself caffeinated.

 

   “Aren’t you gonna drink?”, Donghae then asked, putting the cup back on the table and turning back to the screen. Yuki was on the floor, waiting, the soft white lights under the steel floor illuminating its stomach and casting a shadow out of its nose that amused Hyukjae.

   “Not yet.”

  
   The sound of typing was fairly continuous for the next hour. Donghae looked like he had found a gold mine of some sort, and every now and then would ask Hyukjae random questions like what is your favourite colour and what would Hyukjae like to after this whole ordeal was done. Donghae was trying to find the right way of command to control the androids, and when that finally happened, he yelled “Aha!” and they both heard a click.

  
   The brunet rushed to take one last sip of the cup next to him, then standing up and running to the middle of those big blocks of computery behind them. He checked every hallway on both sides, before finding what he was after. He whistled for Yuki to follow him, and together they disappeared between the machines. Hyukjae was too tired and hungry to stand up, so he stayed by the computer and used the same cup Donghae had drank from. The coffee was slowly cooling down, and it tasted really bad.

   After drinking half of it, Hyukjae took out some kind of a snack bar with strawberry yoghurt toppings. His plan was to eat it slowly, let it melt in his mouth and give him a chance to waste at least five more extra minutes on eating, but that didn’t happen because he ended up eating it in three big pieces.

  
   Cheeks full of it, he munched on the delicious food like a hamster. As he was doing that, he decided to stand up and walk, abandoning the coffee to find Donghae. The brunet was on the third last row. When Hyukjae went around the corner he saw the holy trinity of hacking - Donghae, his laptop, and his robot companion, all connected by cords except Donghae who was just tangled somewhere in between, looking like he’d be a part of it physically. He was sitting on the floor, typing furiously and the screen of the laptop shining a blue light on his face.

  
   After swallowing the perhaps too big of an amount of sweetness in his mouth, Hyukjae licked his mouth clean and started talking.

  
   “I’m bored. What are you doing?”

  
   Donghae wasn’t the type to keep on talking nothing while working. He sighed, since distractions would not make any good for his concentration skills. But he decided to try. For Hyukjae.

  
   “I’ve located the.. uhm..”, he was trying hard to find the right descriptive word, “..options unit..? ..so I can infiltrate the system with my own little virus, you know? I’m doing that now and trying to crack a few codes.” He tried to keep the explanation simple so he wouldn’t have to answer any more unnecessary questions.

  
   “What codes? Is it going well?”

  
   “I shouldn’t answer that”, the brunet chuckled, “otherwise everything would be the exact opposite in the next five seconds.”

  
   Hyukjae smiled.

  
   So, it was going well. Donghae got the mysterious boost of happiness out of the smile he received.

   “After this we’re getting to the best part. I’m gonna get myself this, how should I say it - digital all access? Like your card and code, but not in the physical world. Then I can shut the guards down.”  
   “Every single one?”, Hyukjae asked. There was a glow of excitement in the blond’s eyes, making him even more beautiful in Donghae’s mind. A person who had hope was the one with the liveliest eyes.

 

   Donghae liked that. Scratching his head, he answered, “Well.. almost. I still have to manually write that command as many times as there are areas in this city. What do they have, like 15 teams per area? That’s the highest I can get at a time.”

  
   “Why don’t you just copy paste?”

  
   “For some reason that doesn’t work”, mumbled the brunet who was appalled by the fact, “but, we still have time, right?”

  
   That they did, and when Donghae was done with getting his ultimate access, he left Yuki stay connected to the machine in order to keep the controlled virus fresh and alive, meanwhile he could access the info database from the main screen. Hyukjae offered him food, but Donghae declined.

   “Your loss”, said Hyukjae, shrugging his shoulders before grabbing his second snack bar of that night to silence his growling stomach. Climbing the stairs had definitely made him hungry.

 

\--

 

   Donghae looked like a mad scientist when he could finally enter the first shutdown command. It was all going so perfectly well, that he just knew at some point they’d experience a backlash.

  
   Hyukjae had gone outside of the room to do a check up. The sun was slowly starting to come up as the clock struck 6AM, the hues of pink and purple intruding the room. Before going back to the windowless control unit located in the middle of the floor, Hyukjae carefully scanned the floor.

  
   That’s when he remembered they weren’t living in the weekend anymore. The night had turned into a normal monday morning, which mean that people would be waking up around that time.

  
   They would go to _work_.

  
   And they would come _there_.

  
   Hyukjae suddenly felt completely awake again.

  
   For a good three seconds he stood still, having the thought still process in his tired mind, but when he actually understood the problem he cursed.

   “Shit, shit, shit..!”, he whispered to himself as he hurriedly made an u-turn and ran back to the control unit. When stepping inside and closing the door, his tone was a bit more lower than usual and his mind wandering off somewhere in his thoughts. Much to his surprise he was nervous, he hadn’t thought about the weekday thing through at all.

  
   “How.. how many areas do you have left?”, he asked from Donghae, gulping as he walked up to him and leaned over his shoulder, staring at the screen like he could understand it. Like expected, although he had seen it many times, he still wouldn’t.

   “A good hundred”, Donghae answered, not batting an eye as he wanted to type everything correctly and not have any typos. Hyukjae didn’t want to worry the other just yet, so he just nodded and didn’t mention about his revelation. If they hadn’t been fucked before, they were now. Gloriously standing there in the middle of the building, behind all kinds of locks and doors as people would start arriving to their workplace. That was his great plan, flushed down the toilet within seconds.

  
   A bothering thought arose in his mind. What if they couldn’t make it out alive?

  
   Feeling horrible about what he had done, he rushed to the backpack. He couldn’t just stand still. The blond took out all of the bullet belts and put them on his body, then proceeding to load his guns. One should’ve been deaf to not notice the sudden hurry.

   Donghae stopped his writing at once and looked at Hyukjae. “What’s wrong?”

  
   “I’m getting ready. We have to leave as soon as we can”, he gave him a short explanation.

  
   “Why?”

  
   “Just continue what you were doing!”

  
   Donghae got startled by the other raising his voice.

   “Alright, alright...” He eyed the blond weirdly before turning back to the screen, figuring it was not about him but more about some kind of threat Hyukjae had realized. The truth just hadn’t hit the brunet’s overstimulated mind yet. Why wouldn't Hyukjae tell the truth though?

  
   Doing his best in pushing it aside, he got back to the typing. One long command after another, he finished them, and by every passing second Hyukjae got more alerted. What even he didn’t know, was that there was something completely else coming than just the workers.

  
\--

  
   In the third skyscraper of the main complex, a group of policemen ran down a hallway with basic AK-47s in their hands. They were different from the androids since they were real humans, wearing navy blue uniforms instead of gray ones, and having differences in height. They jogged out of the building to the streets in a military-like way, making their way quickly but steadily in formations of two clean 5-member lines, to the big, slightly dirty office building with wall sized glass windows. It was like in the old New York many years ago, not as high as the skyscrapers in Asia but built in a way that no one could access it besides people who got through the front door, or could land on the helicopter roof.

  
   It was night time, the stars visible in the sky and the cold wind biting their flushed cheeks. One helicopter was flying in the distance and a few nightly merrymakers walked past the policemen, not minding the sight as it was such a normal thing. Eventually the group made it to the front door. The first person on the right line took out his all access card and put it in a small, horizontal hole next to the door. Access enabled, they walked into the building and hurried to the elevators. The first one of the left line took out a walkie talkie. There was a receptionist by the lobby desk now, and he could only look shocked from the visitors. What was going on?

  
   “Squad 24 in pursuit. Asking for confirmation of the target’s location, over”, said the monotone voice while waiting for a response and the elevator. Latter one came first.

  
   They heard noise, and then talking, “Target is on the 48th floor, heavily armed and behind a sealed door, over.”

  
   “Copy that. Squad 24 is now entering the elevator, over.”

  
   And so they got inside the lift, leaving the receptionist dumbfounded.

  
\--

  
   “Donghae, can I unplug Yuki? We have to leave as soon as we just can.”

   On top of the arriving workers, there was something in Hyukjae’s gut telling him that by now Gijae knew about their wild plans and would take action as soon as he would wake up and hear the new of the pair of them.

  
   “Only on my mark. The system will kill the virus in about five minutes when Yuki is not there to keep it up. I don’t have that much left, please wait for just a bit more.”

  
   Hyukjae nodded.

   “Okay.”

   Then he went to the robot dog. Staring at the mess of cords in front of him with a desperate look, he sighed. “Can’t we just leave the wires?”, he asked, raising his voice over the humming that was getting to his weakened nerves.

  
   He didn’t get an answer.

  
   “Donghae?”

  
   He tried a bit louder.

  
   “Donghae!?”

  
   "Where the hell did he go now...?" asked Hyukjae from himself now. "Do you hear me, Donghae?"

 

   Walking a zig zag between the dog and the way he had came from, he eventually decided to just go to the main hallway, in the middle of the grid. As he looked to the direction of the main screen, his walking stopped like he would’ve crashed into a wall. He saw no one.

  
   His heart skipped a beat or two. Or perhaps even three. It was just a few seconds ago that the brunet was here!

  
   Panicking, he automatically looked back at his other option, to Yuki’s direction. To his horror the dog wasn’t there either.

   “What the f--?” the blond managed to blurt out, just before he felt something faintly touch his back. Out of pure reflex he turned around and raised the gun in his hand to smack whoever was there, but as he recognized it as the brunet he stopped just as quickly.

  
   “Wow, easy there!” There was Donghae with his deep dark eyes, shielding his head with his own arms and looking equally startled.

   The two men stared at each other for no more than a millisecond before Hyukjae realized he didn’t have to fight Donghae. He put down his hands and cleared his throat. “Sorry, I-”

  
   “What? Did you get scared?", the brunet asked with a mean smile. Hyukjae figured that this was just one of the many tricks of Donghae.

 

   "Relax, it was a joke..", said the brunet gently, "I'm done, so let’s go." That helped Hyukjae, but just a little.

  
   “Thanks a bunch, idiot", the blond mumbled, still recovering from the fright. He was left looking at Donghae’s back.

 

   At the door, just as Donghae was about to put his hand on the door handle, Hyukjae spoke.

  “Wait..”, he tried to say after the man, stopping him with just that one word. The blond didn’t know why, but knowing that he was a victim of that stupid trick that made him worried, he just longed for the sweet side of Donghae for one last time.

  
   He took a deep, brave breath as he grabbed Donghae’s shoulders and turned him around. The blond cupped the brunet’s face, then kissing him before they'd step out of the door.

  
\--

  
   The police squad busted right through the doors of the 48th floor office. Some early birds were there already sitting neatly in their cubicles, sipping their morning coffee and looking at the sight like they couldn’t believe it. The armed men dressed in navy blue went straight towards the centre of the floor, going around the right side to the locked door. The first one on the right opened it with his card, and then they all barged in in pairs, the last two of them staying at the door, guns ready to fire and walkie talkies ready to report back to their supervisors.

  
   Inside, an empty chair with a lit up screen was waiting for them. Putting on the flashlights at the end of their guns, the first pair pointed at the chair as their eyes scanned the sides. In one of the corners they started hearing a repeating clank sound that bounced back from the walls.

   The team got alerted, and the leader spoke up. “Come out and surrender! That’ll ease your verdict at the court if you cooperate.”

  
   Clank. Clank.

  
   Slowly and steadily, the squad got closer to the corner. From between every computer, they checked the room and got closer to the target. They had them cornered.

  
   “Freeze!”, he shouted and directed the flashlight at the corner.

  
   It was, very much to their disappointment, empty. One red cord was tied on the thin pipe above them, swinging before the air conditioning hatch and clanking everytime it hit the hollow air duct.

  
   Stupid surprise plastered on their faces, the men immediately ran back to the entrance of the room, where they found the last two on the floor.

  
   The leader quickly abandoned his gun to search for a walkie talkie from the unconscious man.

   When he didn’t find one, or neither of them that should’ve been there, he cursed. “They took the radios! After them, now, hurry!” There was seriousness in his voice that couldn’t be measured.

  
\--

  
   Back in the elevator, Hyukjae was holding the two black objects in his hands. During the ride down he used all of his force trying to break them, but couldn’t succeed in it before they had to straighten up and walk nonchalantly across the lobby. Eyes of the receptionist were glued on their backs as they retreated in their different coloured capes, but as a mere citizen who was just working there, he did nothing to stop them.

  
   The pair of men walked free, out from the automatic glass doors and started running for their lives on the very second their boots touched the asphalt.

  
\--

  
   The sleepless night behind them, with all of its excitement and climbing of endless stairs, cold coffee sips and humming of the machines, their tiredness got replaced by a newfound hyperactivity and giggling as they got into the subway. The clock was indicating 7:21, and the two of them were laughing madly about their close escape in the midst of annoyed 3-level workers wearing suits and fashion dresses, all traveling to their respectable workplaces.

  
   With every stop the train got more packed up, and eventually they had to change carriages when someone shouted the name Eunhyuk.

  
   They decided to sit down on the overground platform to admire the sunrise. The purple shade had started fading already, leaving only bright blue and a hint of pink. The clouds of yesterday were gone now, and that allowed the bright sun to shine right at his eyes from between two towers of the main skyscraper complex where Hyukjae new Gijae was hiding at the very moment. Another train passed by, leaving and collecting new passengers, but the pair of men stayed. The lack of sleep started getting the best of them.

  
   When the crowd dissipated with the last business man jogging off with his small suitcase and the busy lady wearing high heels, crouching down to fix their shoe, Hyukjae and Donghae could see the first collapsed android of that morning. They hadn’t noticed it as they were too high on their tiredness earlier, but when they did they went silent at once, looking at the robot and then each other. The sunlight casted strong shadows on the sides of their faces. Donghae spent a while admiring the eyelashes of the other, his gaze going down to the lips and cheeks as well, and Hyukjae finally admitted to himself that he could say Donghae was something he never would’ve thought he’d come across.

  
   Trusting him had been the right decision.

  
   “What do we do next?”, the brunet asked, waking Hyukjae up from the depths of his mind. “It’s your plan after all”, he was smiling genuinely, almost overshadowing the sideways sunlight coming from the horizon. Another train stopped at the platform, exchanged its passengers and then kept going, making the shadows dance on the chiseled stone brick ground.

  
   “We trust that the people are doing what we asked them to. Level 3 will either go to work or won’t probably even get out of bed because they have everything they want. So, we go to Gijae.”

  
   By 7:41 they were collecting too many gazes from the people that passed them. Did they not know what was going on?

  
   “How do we do that, exactly? Just walk up to his office and say hello, good bye?”

  
   Standing up with their aching feet, they stood up together and got into the next train that came from the opposite direction, on the other side of the platform.

  
   “We get caught.”

 

   It might've sounded crazy, but it actually wasn't such a bad idea.

 

* * *

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

 

 

   “...and you are to be put under arrest from breaking into the headquarters of the android maintenance and control buildings, performing a digital break in into the police force system, stealing government property such as uniforms and firearms, using items mentioned to disguise yourself as an android guard, using the same firearms against the police, and lastly proceeding to commit three murders directed towards androids with the same equipment.”

 

   Honestly speaking, that was a list that Hyukjae was proud of. He looked at Gijae straight in the eyes, balancing out their differences with his fierce eyes that burned with confidence. Gijae stood up from his chair, left the list of crimes written on paper on his desk, and walked around in front of the two men, who were kneeling down on the floor, hands put up and both with armed men pointing at them with their guns.

  
   “What will you do now, Gijae?”, asked the blond on his knees on the floor, “Now that people are rioting on the streets all of the android units are down.. When we are on the news of every station even across the country, and we have over a half of the population on our side..”

  
   Donghae was very scared of how this craziness would ever end up getting them to their victory. He let Hyukjae do all of the talking, meanwhile he tried to figure out a way to make use of the room they were in. Without Yuki, he felt partly defeated, but the strong aura of Hyukjae next to him kept him floating on the surface of the sea of uncertainty. And, they still had one trick up their sleeve. Donghae just wasn't sure if it would work. Hyukjae had told him that it would, so he trusted the blond.

  
   “I don’t know if I should give you and your little friend here a life, or a death sentence”, Gijae said with a despising tone. He ignored, or at least tried to ignore everything what Hyukjae said. The blond was right in every aspect of his speech, and Gijae had nothing to say against that. The androids were useless now. He could only control the human guards, and that unfortunately didn’t happen with the click of a button. Donghae, as he himself had put it, had the ultimate access. Given enough time, he could’ve programmed all of them against the leader itself. Of course that outcome would’ve had its problems too, but nevertheless would have had Hyukjae reassuring Donghae with quick glances and smiles every now and then, just like he had done up to this point.

  
   Hyukjae was kind of like the Sherlock of their time. He was an intelligent man, just like Donghae, but in a different field. He seemed like the person who could deal with it all perfectly by himself, but he had told Donghae that he wouldn’t have made it without him. He couldn’t work without his Watson. Only together they could work like a newly built machine, with good quality oils and tightly attached bolts. Obviously, they both were equally Sherlocks and Watsons, but the idea was the same.

  
   “The word life sounds more inviting, I think”, Hyukjae stated. The smile on his face got wider. Smug, even.

  
   “That would be too positive. I don’t really feel like being nice after all you’ve done, Eunhyuk.”

  
   During the silent pause between them Hyukjae's smile got suddenly swept by emotions. He did not want to hear that name, said in that tone, in this situation.

   “That is not my name”, he stated in all seriousness.

 

   Donghae turned to look at the blond, waiting for the signal Hyukaje had promised. His knees were bruised and aching, his thighs were trembling and hurting, and his head felt like a hollow vase that was keeping a void inside. He should’ve been saving the coffee for later.

   The monotonous talk almost made him drift away, but before he could close his eyes, he saw Hyukjae’s face directed towards him and saw him mouth out the words, “Bring it.”

  
   Gijae didn’t like their secret exchange. “What did you whisper? Huh!?”

  
   Donghae raised his head and looked at the old man. Now it was his turn to smile before he put his lips in a small o-shape and whistled. Gijae stood motionless, not undestanding the two of them.

  
   Then they all heard scratching at the door.

  
   Before Gijae could even shout out his next swears and orders at the guards in the room, his face was met with an immense heat wave and a blinding light. An explosion at the front door made all four of the guards inside fall down, and in a matter of seconds Hyukjae and Donghae both flung on the floor, taking their guns out and rolling on their backs to face the fallen guards.

   With an ear piercing bang still ringing in their ears they both stood up and rushed to gather the rifles away from the police men, throwing them into a corner where Donghae went to guard them. Yuki ran to him through the blown open doors. Hyukjae walked directly towards Gijae and placed a foot on his ribcage. His aim was directly pointing towards the old man’s head.

  
   ”You never answered. What are you going to do now, Lee Gijae?”, the blond asked, hate and anger flooding out from every syllable he spelled out. He studied the sweaty face and spent a moment enjoying the defeat.

  
   ”Your time on the throne is over.”

  
\--

  
   What became of the city Sakgan after that, someone might ask? If every city would have had a song representing them, Sakgan’s melody would’ve been an upbeat jazz tone with a playful banjo giving riffs for it. The atmosphere was already heading off to a better direction. To put it bluntly, there was really nowhere else to go than towards a better future.

  
   Hyukjae, still going by the name Eunhyuk for the public just because it was easier, was still standing on the balcony of his room when he had free time, staring at the far ends of the city and counting the chimneys. He knew in which direction the sea was. He knew where the subway station was that would bring him to the first level if he just changed the subway lines enough, and he knew and recognized the buildings where he had been in, but he saw all that in a different light. It was unbelievable, but the freedom that was bestowed upon the city could already be seen on the street view. Maybe there were some people who tried to resist Eunhyuk getting the control of the city, but most of the level 3 citizens hadn’t really liked Gijae either. And, freedom was something that had been a luxury for most of the city. So, if there was anyone who dared to go against Eunhyuk, they would be at least interrogated by the people who were now free.

  
   Speaking of the previous leader, that evil being of a man had been put into prison. Staring at the rare clouds passing by, Hyukjae could still recall the look on his uncle’s face when he had defeated him. He was proud of himself, proud of Donghae, proud of everyone who stood behind his thought and supported his ideals. Life was finally getting back on track (if it ever was on a track), but still out of everything that gave pleasure to Hyukjae in their god forsaken world was only one thing that made him feel even better than those disappointed eyes of Gijae.

  
   It was Donghae.

  
   Donghae, who didn’t want to sell his apartment just yet, and Donghae, who sometimes talked during sleep. Donghae, who, when being head over heels in love, kept repeating how much he adored Hyukjae in his everyday life. And Hyukjae finally had the balls to say it back.

 

\--

  
_“Hyukjae, stop leaving the bed so early..”, came a sweet, loving voice behind the blond. He felt arms circling around his belly, and a jaw landing on his shoulder._

_“Come back to bed”, the brunet mumbled. Donghae nuzzled into the neck of the blond, liking how warm his skin was compared to the coldness. Hyukjae got shivers from it - as if his hands and toes weren’t frostbitten enough already._

  
_It was the dawn of Christmas eve, and the whole city was covered in a thin, about 7 cm layer of white. Donghae wondered if the sea had been frozen too._

  
_“When will you come back?”, asked Hyukjae and turned around to face the brunet, the arch of his back leaning against the uncomfortably frigid hand railing of the balcony. Donghae was so close to him that he was afraid they’d break the glass fence and fall down._

  
_“Come on, Hyuk. It’s not like I’d be leaving for days.” Donghae kissed the reddened nose of the blond softly, not being able to resist the inviting, cute lips next._

  
_It was a fact that no one could override. Hyukjae, now as the head of the city, and Donghae, now as the level 1 representative who still had things to take care of. They had a demanding future in front of them, and slowly they were changing the wrongs of Gijae, which unfortunately would take pretty much all of their time during the first six months. But they would make it work._

  
\--

  
   Donghae was walking down the streets of the second level. The sight he was met with was livelier than he had ever seen it be, and all of the little shopkeepers that had lived in fear all these years were now celebrating the occasion, and had either bought or self built Christmas lights hanging on their windows. Red, yellow, green.. everything that didn’t match with the equally bright decorations next door.

  
   People strolling past him recognized the brunet and wished him a happy Christmas. Donghae returned the kind act as many times as possible. He was still considered as one of the maddest people in town, having a long list of killed androids behind his name, but luckily Hyukjae had pardoned him officially. Androids weren’t human after all, and throughout their adventure Donghae had made sure to not take any actual human lives.

  
   As Donghae walked to the other end of the street, dancing over the crowd were the carefree tones of a happy saxophone. Tunes of plain jazz traveled to the ears of everyone who passed by, and spread out the Christmas spirit. Donghae knew by the sound of it who he was. What was his name again? The same happy man with the brightest smile, was he Leeteuk? Donghae stopped to listen, just like the first time until the song ended. He went up to the man to give him a note big enough to cover his expenses for the next week, now that he had a bit more cash to spare.

  
   Leeteuk, with his surprised eyes and glued dimples, thanked the brunet in a very enthusiastic manner and grabbed his saxophone again to play a short, funny series of tunes just for him. As a thank you.

  
   One pair of androids, followed by a policeman walked past the scene. They didn’t bat an eye at their surroundings. Maybe there was a PC-R walking past or taking care of a restaurant, they still didn’t mind and just continued walking with neutrality plastered on their faces. Along with Donghae’s new programming, the androids weren’t hostile anymore. They didn’t shoot innocent people or other robots, and they definitely didn’t arrest anyone without a human accompanying them. They were now testing out the new modes, and this was the first version.

  
   Donghae bid the man farewell once again. Leeteuk knew his name by now, so he was extremely overjoyed of their small exchange. With an even happier spirit he started playing a slower melody that Donghae would’ve wanted Hyukjae to hear.

  
   After a few turns the brunet came across a pastry shop. He didn’t remember if it was the same one they had visited with the blond. They all looked the same to Donghae. Walking in through the door with a little tingling bell, he went straight to the counter to browse all the options they had.

  
\--

  
   A low thump woke up Hyukjae from his trance. He had been spending the whole day dealing with paperwork that was critical to get out of the way. That suffering was interrupted when a white box was placed in front of him on the desk. It was the same room where the defeated leader had worked in, and they hadn’t gotten to the fixing of the blown up doors just yet, so he hadn’t heard Donghae walking in. Hyukjae didn’t like the room, but he smiled when he saw the man’s face who had come and made everything better.

   “What’s this?”, he asked, grabbing the beautiful silver ribbon of the bow that was on top of the box. The knot was untied by his thin fingers, and Hyukjae looked back up to see Donghae’s warm smile.

   “A small present for you. Merry Christmas, Hyuk.”

  
   Hyukjae was skeptic about it. Donghae was the kind of person to give heart shaped circuit boards that had been cut with a circular metal saw. Nevertheless, he opened the cardboard lid and looked inside. A sweet smell filled his nostrils.

  
   Delicious, fresh strawberry pastries.

  
   “How many did you buy!?” As he opened it more, he didn’t see just one, but at least four.

  
   “Five. I ate one.”

  
   Hyukjae couldn’t help but smile. Standing up and grabbing the box with his hands, he quickly rushed around the desk and went to give Donghae his well deserved kiss before running to the door.

   “I’m done for today!”, he exclaimed to the silent butler android standing in the corner, then exiting the room before Donghae could. The robot nodded, shut off the lights and left behind to clean up for the still disarrayed room.

  
\--

  
   Next morning, after a night filled with sweet hours of tenderness and strong feelings, the two of them slept longer than intended. When Hyukjae’s eyes fluttered open, he yawned and stretched out his arms, arching his back. Donghae got awoken by his movements.

  
   “It stings, doesn’t it?”, he heard a mumble from the brunet still half asleep.

  
   “Huh?”

  
   “The butt.”

  
   Hyukjae looked at the other as he raised his brow before he understood what he meant. The blond chuckled.

   “No, it doesn--- ow!” He yelped when he abruptly noticed it as he turned to lay on his back. It did.

   “Let’s sleep for a bit longer”, Donghae suggested, tired as a slug. He felt the faint ache in his lower back as well.

   Hyukjae thought that it was probably for the best.

   “Sure.”

  
   They went back to the position they had woken up in, but for some reason they couldn't fall asleep anymore. Instead of closing his eyes Donghae started disturbing the blond.

  
   “You said we were gonna sleep. Stop it”, said Hyukjae when he felt the hand roam his tummy and lips kiss his neck.

   Donghae really liked that spot since it was one of Hyukjae’s most sensitive areas. “I’m asleep”, he assured, “It’s a condition called sleep kissing.”

  
   Not being able to contain the smile, Hyukjae gave up. More small kisses were given, and soft looks were exchanged as Hyukjae turned around. Shameless hands found his hot skin under the cover. What had been a slow moment of waking up, was now turning into a lustful scene of the two of them getting excited once again.

  
   So much for that sleeping.

  
\--

  
   On new year’s eve they decided to visit the first level where it all started. Walking around the same tunnels as they had done on their first week of knowing each other, Donghae brought Hyukjae back to the spot with the roof and the magnificent view that had left an impression on the blond. During the night it had snowed again. The roof was dangerously slippery now, so Hyukjae grabbed the brunet’s arm for support. Donghae kicked some of the snow with his foot so it would fall down off the roof’s edge, and together they sat down on the empty space. There were no clouds today, so the sunlight was shining brightly down from the top, landing on the white surfaces and bouncing back to the walls, making the whole area a bit brighter.

   Tonight they were going to see the biggest firework show in years, but right now in Donghae’s eyes Hyukjae’s beautiful blond locks were the target of his attention. The brunet thought Hyukjae was almost glowing in the sunlight, or then it was just a trash in his eyes that made everything blurry. In that moment he thought Hyukjae could’ve looked like an angel if he just had wings.

  
   “So, have you decided yet?”, asked the mentioned blond, turning to look at Donghae.

   Having been lost in his thoughts for the past five minutes, Donghae just blurted out, “What?”

  
   “Where are you gonna stay from now on?”

  
   That was a good question. Originally Donghae had said that he’d spend his Christmas and new year with Hyukjae in the sky reach. He didn’t want to sell his apartment, and it wasn’t like anyone would’ve wanted to live in it in the first place, but he still wanted to be with Hyukjae while longing for the surroundings that were familiar to him, the freedom and the messiness of the spontaneous life that he was so used to.

   “I don’t know.”

  
   Hyukjae would’ve loved to have Donghae live with him, but he knew it wouldn’t be so easy as in the fairytales. He had to work hard to make the city work, and he couldn’t have Donghae just sitting in his apartment and waiting until his long days would be over. Of course the brunet had actually gotten a new job at the improvement department too, as Hyukjae liked to call it, so he wasn’t unoccupied. But that didn’t mean that they would be working at the same areas every day. It was a tough situation.

   They had the burning feeling and longing towards each other, but neither of them could give up their earlier lifestyles although they so much wanted to. Donghae needed his oily robots, his rusty computers, his mechanical knowledge and the cozy home, and Hyukjae needed the tidy office, the annoying stamping sets and his robot servants. Yuki was no longer a part of Donghae’s daily company since they didn’t have to keep an eye out on guards anymore, but the dog was safely keeping the old apartment safe. If anyone would intrude it while Donghae was away, he’d get a signal. And, Donghae couldn’t spend too much time in that apartment in some while since he had lots of ideas he’d have to work on to make the first level life better, along with Hyukjae’s approval.

  
   “I think..”, the brown haired man started as he looked back at the view, “I’ll keep the old one. I still need to spend some nights there. Especially if we want to get project TGRU started.”

  
   “Right. That’s true.” Hyukjae understood.

  
   TGRU, simply an acronym for the words _trash and garbage re-used_ , was a program they had designed together so they could open the waste levels to those who wanted to make use of them, such as licensed salesmen. The Gimcho plaza was to be opened again and used as a proper market place like back in the days, and that way they could still pass forwards the good, functioning parts that could be found in the trash. Donghae was the one to be in charge of that. When that would roll on its own weight he could concentrate on the other projects.

 

   “You know I’ll come and see you whenever I don’t have to be there. The first months will be busy, and you still have that law stuff to clear out.. but after that", Donghae said gently as he gave Hyukjae one of his sweetest smiles that would surely melt the other’s heart.

  
   “Yeah..”, Hyukjae recalled his latest assignments, “that law shit will someday blow my head off.”

  
   Another program they had thought about were new recycling factories. Robots that would help cleaning the city, and specially designed vacuums that would change the air pollution into bricks that could be used to build something else somewhere. They couldn’t save the world anymore, but they could still make these things come true and that way improve the quality of life in the city of Sakgan. They were in the middle of hiring engineers, all kind of workers who’d be able to help with that job.

  
   It was difficult balancing between work partners and lovers, but they were sure they’d make it work.

  
   In the end, all humans were mere ants living on the surface of the earth, trying to survive in what their ancestors had left behind three hundred years ago.

  
   In the end, every living being left was just as fragile as delicate snowflakes on warm steel.

  
  


 

**END**

 

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